


we might exist in the chaos

by darkcosmo



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/F, Mostly Canon Compliant, Secret Relationship, everyone possible joins the BE, spoilers for all routes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28099497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkcosmo/pseuds/darkcosmo
Summary: After Edelgard declares her war, Claude leaves for Almyra, leaving not only a power vacuum in Leicester; but a heartbroken retainer behind.His last request to Hilda: aid Marianne to escape a political marriage, but she soon finds herself in way over her head at the heart of the Adrestian Empire’s stronghold. Unfortunately, General Ladislava takes an interest in her, under the impression that she is anything like her brother Holst.Hilda’s predicament is only made worse, as her first instinct when faced with harm, is to immediately escalate it via insults.
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 86
Kudos: 138





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> CF Route.

**1**

The remains of Garreg Mach Monastery tower above everyone and everything, foreboding and partly destroyed. Despite the caved-in ceiling of the cathedral, the tattered banners snapping against the wind, and the singed walls, the Officer’s Academy is bustling with life. 

And how could it not?

The previously holy stronghold had become the Adrestian Empire’s base of operations, shortly after Edelgard declared her war and everything went to hell.

Hilda still had a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that her next-door neighbor had been planning an all-out-war against the Church of Seiros. While Hilda had spent her time goofing off, barely able to wipe her own ass, Edelgard’s busy schedule had consisted on donning a cape and mask to terrorize her classmates. Not only _that_ , but somehow the Black Eagle’s professor, Byleth Eisner, had managed to recruit loads of the most promising students from the Blue Lions and Golden Deer to their cause, Hilda’s friends included. 

To make matters worse, Claude had all but _abandoned them_.

Needless to say, even two years later, it was still a sore spot for Hilda. She hated even _thinking_ about it, but the heir-apparent to the Riegan Dukedom had turned out to be the _prince of Almyra_. Baltie’s and Holst’s childhood crush, also known as Claude’s mother, had fled Derdriu only to get hitched to the _King_ from the east. Hilda had accidentally befriended someone who by all means should have been her natural enemy, but something mysterious and wonderful in the cosmos had aligned, and instead, she ended up adoring that boy. So much, in fact, that she stuck by him even as their Golden Deer friends defected to the Black Eagles, one by one.

His abrupt departure from the continent had left a terrible power vacuum in the Leicester Alliance, with the remaining roundabout Lords scrabbling to gain control, her brother included. Claude’s crusty grandfather wasn’t much of a threat anymore, not with the Empire breathing down their neck. A change of leadership was imminent, and the torturous process had dragged on for _two years_ , bringing the fighting to a stalemate while the world held its breath for who would come out on top. It wasn’t officially a _civil war_ , but it was close.

The Margrave Edmund, Count Gloucester and dear Holst were at each other’s throats, with the wild card Judith of Daphnel now interested in the position as well. Even the previously subdued Count Ordelia appeared to still have some fight left in him after all, and he, too, participated in the ensuing power struggle. The prize for whoever emerged victorious would consist on deciding whether the Alliance would support the Empire, or fight alongside Faerghus to stop the conquest.

Before things could get _too_ ugly, at Claude’s behest, Hilda had agreed to escort Marianne back to their sacred place of learning. His last request, right before he placed a sloppy kiss to her forehead and left for good, had been to save their docile friend from the plans of her power-hungry adoptive father, which included an arranged marriage to the insufferable Lord Acheron. Marianne had been one of the Deer that transferred to the Black Eagle house, so joining the Imperial army, despite it being two years late to the party, shouldn’t be a problem.

“It’s weird to be back…” Marianne’s soft voice murmurs beside her, dragging Hilda’s attention away from beholding what could only be described as the carcass of their school. She grunts in agreement.

The place probably still bore a solid foundation under the rubble, but Edelgard’s army obviously had other priorities that did not include restoring the damaged monastery. The Immaculate One’s rampage and the battle in general had done quite a number on the centuries of history within these walls, and it was a little sad to witness it in ruin.

Marianne urges Dorte forward. Hilda’s own horse had been killed on the way, courtesy of bandits, so for the last stretch of the road the Alliance girls had to share a ride, which was more than fine by Hilda. Dorte was as reliable as they came, having survived the fall of Garreg Mach, and the four-legged friend had carried Marianne to safety all the way to her stepfather’s estate when the war broke out a couple of years ago. The trusty steed still had a few trips left in him.

There is a sort of checkpoint at the entrance to the market. Marianne had sent a letter expressing her intention of joining the Empire beforehand, and the stationed guards wave them in. The familiar guy they had simply dubbed “the Gatekeeper” during their school days gives them a toothy smile from under his helmet, along with a _welcome back!_ His buddies do give Hilda and the wicked axe Freikugel strapped to her back an odd look, but they don’t ask too many questions. Perhaps they figured the two girls were a package deal– they had been quite close in school, after all, and the guards were former monastery staff, not imperial soldiers.

Why her brother had insisted she take their family heirloom for _this_ was beyond her. No regular bandit stood a chance against the Heroes’ Relic. Part of her suspected it was due to the increased demonic beast sightings as of late, but they hadn’t encountered any on the way.

The marketplace is busy today, and they dismount. Dorte snorts and shakes out his mane, and Marianne laughs fondly as she places a hand to his nose and sings his praises about getting them here safe and sound.

Hilda’s heart clenches at the sight.

Marianne had been doing so _well_ the past couple of years, if their back-and-forth letters were any indication, and then she had confirmed it herself with their little road trip. She still had bad days, of course, but she seemed to be doing better every day. It made Hilda unbelievably sad that she would not be there to witness her grow into the fine young woman she always knew her to be. Even still, Hilda is determined to put on a cheery front for Marianne’s sake, no matter how foul her true mood is.

A tall figure maneuvers around the crowd, and something about them is _so_ ominous that it immediately catches her eye. Hilda strains on her tiptoes to try to get a good look, and she manages to do just that when they lean down to inspect some imported wares from Dagda.

Hilda bites back a curse. It’s _Hubert_.

And Caspar is with him. She’d better make this brief.

Before she can even fathom to begin with a proper goodbye, some guy crashes against her. Hilda is well-built, has solid footing, so it’s the newcomer who bounces off her frame, so hard that the hooked-bird mask he wears clatters to the floor beside him as he lands on his ass. A dark mage, from the look of it.

He’s young, about her age, and his features are absolutely unremarkable— except for _one_ thing. He has a shock of stringy white hair, not unlike Lysithea’s, sticking out from under the hood that’s pulled over his ears. Other than that, he could be like any other faceless mage of the dark arts, who hid behind a mask and creeped in the shadows, away from the light of the goddess.

She gives him the stink eye, “Watch it, buddy.”

Usually Hilda would have been _a lot_ more chill about the accident, but today the scrawny guy was just another casualty of her wrath. Besides the mask, a book in his possession flies open as well, and it captures her attention. It’s a poor drawing of a peacock-like feather. The design of it takes her a second to place, but she quickly realizes that it’s Seiros’ symbol. The book is about crest designs.

 _Oh_ , it’s just some nerd like Hanneman?

She’s about to apologize for the unwarranted hostility, until the fallen man takes _one_ look at sweet Marianne and his face twists into an ugly, murderous scowl. Marianne flinches at the withering look, and Hilda’s blood boils.

This was no Hanneman apprentice.

This clown must be one of the annoying ‘crest scholars’ that had harassed poor Marianne with their theory that her crest carried misfortune, that she was cursed. The girl’s years of self-loathing had been partly fueled by these kinds of claims. Claude and herself had dealt with them on the rare occasion that members of this group would follow and heckle Marianne while shopping in town, but apparently, they hadn’t faded into obscurity.

Hilda takes one step forward, her hand closing around the pommel of Freikugel. The guy has the good sense to push himself back in a hasty crab’s walk, gather his shit, and scamper away. He tries to shove past Marianne, but the Edmund girl takes a delicate step back, unfazed by the attempted aggression.

“He’s… not worth it, Hilda,” Marianne murmurs once he fades into the crowd, “let it go.”

“I wanted to scare him, that’s all. I just didn’t like the way he looked at you,” Hilda stares after him, as if her gaze alone could smite him, but she blinks herself back to reality and offers the younger girl a warm smile, “Hey, Mari? I’m going to miss you.” 

Shy as she was, Marianne gave the best hugs, on the rare instance that she initiated them. She props her chin against Hilda’s shoulder, wraps her in a tight embrace, and sniffles against the fabric of her shirt, “Oh, Hilda. I-I’m… scared.”

“You’re going to do wonderful,” she tries to rub small circles at the small of her friend’s back to soothe her, “Lysithea and Leonie are here, too, remember? And the boys,” _minus Claude_ , “they’ll look after you. Anything you need, you tell them. Anyone give you trouble, send word. I’ll come running if I have to. I don’t care that there’s a war.”

Marianne’s soft giggle morphs into a sigh, and for a second, the marketplace fades into the background and it’s only the two of them in the world. Hilda was a crier, both the real and the crocodile kind, but she was determined to put up a brave front for the blue-haired girl’s sake.

“Take care, Mari.” She gives her one last bone-crushing squeeze before releasing her. _Go now, before you lose your nerve_ , the last remnants of her self-control urge her. If she looks into those endless brown eyes, Hilda was sure she would crack and drag them all the way back to the Alliance, Lord Acheron be damned.

When they part, Hilda spins on her heel, eager to disappear into the crowd and through the village, past the great Bridge of Myrddin and then home safe, but the universe had other plans. As soon as she tries to take her leave, someone sidesteps in her path, blocking her.

“Goneril.” Hubert’s smile, unpleasant and gloating, stops her in her tracks when he intones, “and just _where_ do you think you’re going?”

Caspar waves at her, dimpled grin and cheery disposition a stark opposite to the man beside him. He looks genuinely happy to see her, as they’d been friendly back in the day. Despite Hilda’s growth spurt, he’s still a little taller than her. She feels Marianne stiffen beside her, probably more concerned about Hubert’s smug look, as they all should be.

Hilda cringes slightly before replacing the look with an innocent smile, “Ah, _heeey_ , guys. Just passing through. _Actually_ , I was planning to do a little shopping before hitting the road. You don’t happen to know where a girl could buy herself a wyvern, do you?”

“Hi, Hilda!” it’s Caspar, cute and eager as he always was, who answers. “Oh, man, there’s a lady selling full-grown ones in the village, imported from the Oghma Mountains. Petra was looking the other day, and–”

“Are you really so naive that you thought you could waltz into our base of operations and come out unscathed?” the taller man cuts off his companion, his tone vicious and entirely directed at Hilda. Caspar visibly deflates, and his shoulders bunch up around his ears. Goddess, _imagine_ being stuck with Hubert on patrol, the horror.

Hilda raises her hands, “Relax, Hubie. I’m just dropping off a friend. I would expect the glorious Adrestian Empire to allow for a heartfelt goodbye between former classmates?”

Hubert does not appreciate the sarcasm dripping from her voice. In fact, if at all possible, his demeanor gets even _more_ hostile, “Ms. von Edmund gave prior notice, and we were expecting her arrival, as she is now a member of this army… _you_ , on the other hand, are swimming in uncharted waters, Lady Goneril.”

She can’t help the bubbling laughter that rises from her throat at the imagery, “Oh, and what are _you_ supposed to be in these dangerous waters? A _shark_?” Hilda wrinkles her nose and scans him from head to toe, “you look like a clump of angry seaweed.”

Ah. Maybe she shouldn’t antagonize the scariest man in the monastery, the same that could have a hundred soldiers swarming her in seconds if he so wished. She soon realizes the mistake she’s made when his lips curl into a smile that’s almost a snarl.

“Caspar,” Hubert says, as the shorter man snaps to attention, “go fetch Her Majesty. Tell her it’s of the utmost importance, for we have caught ourselves a _spy_.”

_For the love of–_

“Surely there’s no need to bother _Edelgard_ with this, eh, ’Bert?” Hilda tries not to let the spark of panic that lights her body seep into her tone. She does a good job, until her impulsive brain tacks on, “She’s probably _sooo_ very busy making our lives better, whether we want her to or not!” when her quip is met with icy silence, she takes a step back, “I’ll just be on my way…?”

“No.”

Hilda’s heartbeat pounds in her ears, loud and terrible. Claude wasn’t a moron. He _must_ have known they wouldn’t just let her _leave_ , that if she came here, she would not be allowed to go back home.

This was planned.

*** * ***

Bickering with Hubert is like trying to convince a mountain to move, and just as useless.

They had moved indoors, right outside the dining hall in a secluded corner, perhaps fearing Hilda would cause a bigger scene than she already had. The Seiros banners that used to hang inside to welcome anyone who entered had been replaced by Imperial ones, but other than that, the entrance hall looked pretty trashed from the Church’s last stand. Big cracks still marred the marble floor, and the long red rug looked rattier than ever.

“I’m not Claude’s _spy_ ,” Hilda tries to insist for the umpteenth time, “in fact, I’m _very_ mad at that guy right now. If you’re thinking about hurting him anytime soon, I want in.”

Hubert’s lips thin, “So much for loyalty.”

“H-Hubert… please believe us. Um. Hilda is not… she was j-just accompanying me here…” Marianne’s tone is as firm as she can muster, which is about the same level of ferocity as that of a kitten, but Hilda is still extremely proud of her attempt.

The man’s features soften by a fraction, so subtle Hilda thinks she imagined it. “Ms. von Edmund, I am not claiming you to be liars, but you must understand… Hilda here tacitly supported King Dimitri, he who stood by the false goddess and her followers.”

“I did _not_!” Hilda all but shrieks, “The monastery was on fire! I was trying to escape with my life. If anything, I stood by _Claude_!” _and look where that got you_ , “plus, Dimitri is _crazy_. Seriously. _You were there_ at the Holy Tomb when he snapped! When he started laughing and beating everyone up!”

Hubert says nothing, just stands there with his all-knowing smirk. Freikugel is propped behind him by the wall, sad and pulsing as always after she was disarmed. Hilda wishes she had the ugly thing in her hand to aid in wiping that cocky look from his face.

She takes a deep breath and tucks her hands under her chin, trying once more to reason with this asshole. “So, let me pick at that diseased brain of yours… if someone’s not _with_ you, then, obviously, it means they’re _against_ you?”

“Precisely.”

Marianne probably senses that Hilda is one second away from murdering the Minister of the Imperial Household where he stands, and her hand shoots out to grip Hilda by the arm. It’s a casual enough touch, but Hilda still shakes with indignation. Honestly, the other girl’s instinct was right. Hilda was not above having a fistfight with the scarecrow of a man if it meant she could slip away before his liege arrived.

Despite being a talented dark magic user, he looked like he had glass bones and paper skin. She could easily overpower him before he could even _think_ about casting a Miasma. In the end, she decides against violence. Hilda was a long way from home, and beating the shit out of Edelgard’s best friend would probably do more harm than good, no matter how badly she wanted to do it.

Time for another strategy.

Perturbed as he was, Hubert was a human, at the end of the day. And other humans tended to really, _really_ like Hilda. It was unlikely her words alone would sway him, but she had plenty of assets to work with.

Hilda flips her hair, makes sure he gets a whiff of her flowery shampoo, and bats her eyelashes. “Oh, _Hubert_?” her voice drops to a purr. She brings her arms together, pushing up her cleavage, making it look _fantastic_ thanks to the boob window on her shirt. “Maaaybe you can… you know. Just let me go? Tell Edelgard you and Caspar had a collective hallucination?”

Marianne makes a choked noise, and even the older Vestra is affected, for a pink tinge spreads across his cheeks. One of his eyes is hidden away by the dark mop that is his hair, but the visible one goes wide. The way his throat bobs as he swallows gives her only the slightest of satisfactions, as sadly he manages fix his attention back on her face.

“A valiant effort, to be sure.” Hubert says, surprisingly serious. A wry smile, the first that doesn’t make Hilda grind her teeth together, spreads over his lips, “But I’m afraid my affections have already been won over by another rather annoying individual, not unlike yourself.”

Hilda gawks, too shocked to be disappointed. “What? _Who_?” she demands, then quickly racks her brain for other annoying individuals. Her eyes go wide, “Is it Ferdina–”

Edelgard joins them then, abrupt and business-like, and Hilda’s gut does a somersault. Caspar and a woman Hilda does not recognize flank her sides, and immediately, her former classmate commands all the attention in the room with the click of her boots against marble.

The Imperial princess –no, it’s _emperor_ , has been for years– does _not_ look amused. The younger girl looks fresh out of the training grounds, her silver hair pulled up into a messy ponytail, with sweaty strands sticking to her face. She’s peeling off bandages wrapped around her hands, which are stained a ruddy color. Hilda did not know that Edelgard was into brawling, and she wonders why she picked it up.

The mysterious woman, clad in intricate armor, trails after the emperor, oblivious to her audience as she talks in a hushed tone, “Your Majesty, perhaps that was… too much. This is the third time this week that you have dislocated someone’s jaw–”

Edelgard halts before them, and raises a hand to stop the older woman, “Hold that thought, Ladislava,” her lilac eyes zero in on Hilda, and she schools her features into a blank canvas when she says, “Well, well. Hilda Goneril. Professional procrastinator, and my inconsiderate next-door neighbor. We meet again.”

She relishes the fact that the emperor has to tilt her head slightly upwards to look at her, as at long last Hilda had hit a growth spurt. In Goneril territory it was nothing to brag about, as all of her family were still literal giants in comparison, but standing before the unimpressive height of the petite Eagle, it’s a big deal!

“Hi, _Edel_ … or should I say, Flame Emperor? What is it these days?” Hilda does a mock curtsy, dipping a little too low. Calling her by Monica’s (actually, _Kronya’s!_ ) nickname for her was an added bonus out of spite. Marianne muffles a mortified sound and yanks her upright, scolding her about being impertinent with the most powerful person in the room.

Could she blame her, though? The last time she had seen Edelgard, the funky little revolutionary had almost burned their school to the ground and admitted to terrorizing them for the better part of the year. Not to sound like Dimitri, but she _was_ behind almost every single bad thing that had happened to them in that accursed school year.

Maybe _a little_ insolence was justified?

Edelgard doesn’t look all that bothered, and turns to her retainer, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. Goddess, it was _so_ creepy when they communicated like that. Hubert is all-too-happy to inform her on the series of events that led to Hilda’s ‘ _capture_ ’ as he so put it, like he led a manhunt himself or something, instead of it being a mix of dumb luck and ridiculously bad timing.

When he’s done, the emperor’s companion seems to take an interest in Hilda. Crimson eyes widen a little when they land on her, and the older woman cocks her head to the side, “ _Goneril_? You… ah. You must be Holst’s little sister.”

Hilda looks the woman over, this _Ladislava_ , and… yeah, maybe late twenties. She has an Enbarr accent, but Holst had friends in stranger places, “Huh, you know my brother?”

“We attended the Officer’s Academy together. We became quite close,” Ladislava says, and Hilda _hopes_ she’s imagining the light blush that creeps up the older woman’s cheeks. She does _not_ like the… the _horny_ glint in those eyes.

Hilda feels a new sense of anxiety course through her already fried nerves. Would it be _too_ inappropriate to ask right then and there, _did you fuck my brother, Ladislava?_

The taller woman goes on, “I must admit, he is the most outstanding Golden Deer I’ve ever met. Why, he was the undefeated champion in every tournament. Not even Glenn Fraldarius could beat him.”

“Wow, so it must run in the family! Hilda’s the only one that ever beat Edelgard at the interhouse axe tournaments,” Caspar, unhelpfully, chimes in.

“Oh?” Ladislava straightens, “Well! That is certainly fortunate,” she glances sideways at her liege, “perhaps we’ve found someone that can… keep up with you, Your Majesty.”

Hilda’s eyes go wide. Hadn’t she _just_ heard her say Edelgard had sent someone to the infirmary with a broken jaw?

What Caspar said was true, about her beating Edelgard. She was the trickiest opponent Hilda had ever faced. When the other girl hit, she did it _hard_. The emperor was simply built _different_ from others, a completely alien breed, even superior to Dimitri’s brute strength. The might and raw power behind her strikes was almost impossible to block, let alone parry or match. 

The secret was, _do not let her land a hit_. Speed and avoidance were the key to surviving an encounter with the powerful house leader, or else it could delve into a dangerous dance that may end in broken bones and nasty bruises. Hilda wouldn’t admit it if asked, but she _had_ undergone special training with her wyvern to perfect an alert stance to ensure Edelgard’s blows would never land.

Edelgard crosses her arms, perhaps reminiscing those tournaments between the houses. The Golden Deer dominated at magic (admittedly, only thanks to Lysithea) and bows, but axes were a strong runner-up due to Hilda. To this day, her natural talent alone had allowed her to pull the win out from under Edelgard time and time again, and she knew that it drove the Adrestian crazy. She was sure that it was especially aggravating because Hilda seldom attended training or gave a shit during Alois’ or Gilbert’s seminars on the subject. It wasn’t her fault that those classes were early on Sunday, or that the drone of their voices was _perfect_ for lulling her to a pleasant sleep.

“It makes sense that if someone has the skill to tutor you in axes, it be Holst Goneril’s sister,” Ladislava continues talking, “if she bears their defensive family crest, it will allow her to endure even the most grueling of training sessions. Really, it’s a sound idea.”

It’s a belated realization, definitely, but it _finally_ dawns on Hilda exactly what’s happening here, that her future is being casually decided on.

She was getting conscripted into the fucking Adrestian army.

“N-No, _wait_. I have better things to do!” Hilda tries to reign in the whine in her tone, and fails. Her eyes flick over to the emperor, “Things that do _not_ include me becoming Edelgard’s punching bag!”

“Or she may become yours!” Caspar says, as if _that’s_ any consolation. Before she can give him a piece of her mind, the emperor herself levels him with a glare of her own, and he winces, “Oh, um. Sorry, Edelgard. But Hilda _is_ real good!”

The younger girl pinches the bridge of her nose, “Let me be clear. No one is becoming anyone’s _punching bag_ , as you so put it,” she pauses, and slowly drags her hand away from her face, only to raise it and run it through her messy ponytail. Her cold eyes bore into Hilda’s, “However… we simply cannot allow you to leave, you understand. So perhaps becoming my _sparring partner_ may be in your best interest.”

“That– but I–” Hilda tries to swallow down her frustration, but it boils over into her stomping her foot. “I am _not_ here to enlist! I don’t want anything to do with you!” 

“Then political prisoner it is!” Hubert says, as close to _gleeful_ as the minion can manage. He folds his hands behind his back and puffs out his chest, “Anyhow, I would not trust Her Majesty’s training to the likes of you,” his face twists into his classic sneer, “what General Ladislava ignores is that _you_ soil your brother’s legacy with every breath your indolent body takes.”

Ladislava’s brow twitches, “That does not sound like the Goneril work ethic _I_ know,” once more, and after Hubert barely restrains a bout of laughter, those unsettling cherry-colored eyes land on her. “Hilda. What grade did you get in axes?”

Hilda chews on her lip, lets out a fake cough, with an answer thrown somewhere in there. Was this really happening? Was she _really_ getting roped into joining the imperial army? Tears almost spring to her eyes, and a bubbling sort of panic seizes her chest, but she fights like hell to keep it concealed. Hubert had been right about these being dangerous waters.

“Sorry, what was that?”

She bites the bullet, _she has to_ , and Hilda sounds resigned when she replies, “Um. I got A rank...”

Since it’s not the legendary S plus, half of her hopes they will just drop it. Her slight optimism is swiftly crushed with the impressed look that Caspar shoots her way. It subtly lets her know Edelgard’s was lower. Perhaps a B rank? Maybe she’d been too busy organizing her coup to properly focus on getting her certifications in order.

“Almost qualified for a Master of the Axe!” Ladislava sounds elated, and she bows her head in Edelgard’s direction, “Then, her majesty willing, it shall be done! There is no better tutor! The second-best options remain in Enbarr, and they are far from ideal. The fact that you two are close in age and skill is beyond perfect, that’s what the best instructors say. As good as having one of those rare Knowledge Gems, even.”

She suspects Edelgard is equally as unhappy as Hilda feels, but she’s leagues better at hiding it. The emperor is all poise and grace when she turns to Hilda and says, “ _Well_. I suppose the professor _did_ try to recruit you on several occasions,” there’s an accusatory edge to her voice, and Hilda scoffs even as the Adrestian continues, “I trust him, even if he’s no longer with us,” a wince, “so perhaps, even with him gone, I must heed his judgement once more.”

The mention of Byleth sends a small spike of ice through her chest. Hilda had liked receiving gifts from him, he’d had a good eye for that sort of thing. The former mercenary had frequently showered her with more gemstone beads and anemones than she’d known what to do with. Hilda had even accepted his teatime invitations more than once, but when it came to him asking her to join the Black Eagles class, she refused him. Every. Single. Time.

Hilda almost did change her mind after the shitshow that went down in Abyss, but in the end, she stayed true to the Golden Deer. She didn’t necessarily regret her choice, but the reminder that she had basically denied a dead man’s wish was a little uncomfortable.

“Please, do not be hasty,” Hubert’s voice is tight. “Why, just now, prior to your arrival, we had been discussing Lady Goneril’s sympathy towards King Dimitri—”

“–you mean when I told you that I thought he was fucking crazy?” Hilda quickly defends herself before an even bigger misunderstanding can ensue, “forgive me for feeling bad that he’s not well in the head! Stop taking shit out of context!”

“She has a point, Hubert. If Hilda wished to do so, she would have joined the Faerghian campaign by now,” Edelgard frowns, “and in your report you did mention a rift between her and Claude–”

“I misspoke,” the slimy man lies through his teeth, “I now believe her to be a mole, sent to spy on us as the Riegan schemer bides his time in the east–”

“Ah, so Dimitri’s not the one who’s not well in the head,” Hilda’s tone is calm, but the finger she jabs against Hubert’s chest is anything but, “ _it’s you_.”

Before Hubert can snap her finger in two, Hilda withdraws her hand, and sticks her tongue out at him. He glowers in place, but does not retaliate. He very much looks like he wants to. Maybe that fight she’d been itching for at the beginning of this hellish meeting could still be on the table.

“Please calm yourselves, and stop acting like children.” The exasperation in Edelgard’s voice is enough to at least get an ashamed shrug from her retainer, who drops his gaze, but Hilda’s glare only intensifies. When those lavender eyes land on her once more, they are critical. Edelgard pins her with that look for a while, probably weighing the available options. It’s so intense that Hilda starts to feel a little self-conscious, and she has to look away.

Eventually, the Emperor sighs. “Hmph. I don’t know. You are a coin toss, Hilda, and I am no gambler.”

Hilda’s _pretty sure_ she just got insulted –that sounded kinda backhanded, right?– and she’s about to ask what the hell she means, but an unlikely person speaks up on her behalf.

“As the head of your personal guard, I will make sure she behaves,” Ladislava promises. “I will vouch for Holst’s sister.”

“Me, too!” Caspar pumps his fist, his entire body alight with excitement, the stark opposite of what Hilda was currently feeling, “and I’m sure lots of our friends will agree! Gosh, can I join in the advanced axe training, too?”

Hilda grimaces. _Fuck_ , curse her and her naturally charming nature. Just like Caspar, _loads_ of people on Edelgard’s inner circle were on friendly terms with her, starting with none other than Ferdinand and Lysithea. Of course she’d get stuck with stellar recommendations for a job she _doesn’t even want_.

The emperor nods her head in acknowledgment of the offered endorsements, but those pretty eyes shift to land solely on Hilda. The ghost of a smirk tugs at her lips, “So what will it be?” Edelgard asks, and adds in a drawl, “do keep in mind, the alternative… is the dungeon.”

“Oh, _wow_ , that’s _super_ tempting. With choices like that…” Hilda’s throat closes up, as do Marianne’s fingers around her bicep. She recognizes the apology behind the touch, hell, desperation practically oozes from the Edmund girl.

Hilda can’t be mad at her. Not when she can be mad at _Claude_ instead.

“Then it’s decided!” Ladislava says, at the exact same moment Hubert grumbles, “This is a mistake…”

It makes her feel icky to agree with _Hubert_ , fuck, she should wash her hands after this. Hilda is fairly sure that both of them share the same miserable expression, even if the reasons for it are abysmally different. 

“Lady Edelgard, I implore that you reconsider—”

“There’s nothing to consider,” Edelgard’s tone is clipped, “Either Hilda will adapt and thrive in a new crestless world,” her mouth curls upwards, “or she can be swept away with the old one. Whatever the case, my mind is made up.”

Hilda’s cheeks burn, and she’s not entirely sure if it’s from the veiled threat, or from the rich timbre in Edelgard’s stupid deep voice when she talks all confident like that. From the air of finality in her words, she understands that the meeting is adjourned. All the emperor offers before stalking off is a stiff _welcome back_ to Marianne, and then she’s gone.

With a gulp, Hilda catches sight of the bandages that Edelgard removed at the beginning of the meeting, carelessly pooled where she stood, brown with her opponent’s dried blood. Hubert leans down to pick them up, clearly pissed at his liege, but desperately trying to conceal it.

“Hilda… oh, _goddess_ , I-I’m so sorry,” Marianne is officially the third most miserable person in the room, by the way she keeps lamenting the situation over and over. It’s a bit telling when she mumbles at the end, “This isn’t… this isn’t what I wanted…”

Before Hilda can gently ask what she means, or just mindlessly reassure her that in no way is this her fault, Hubert is done with his task and he straightens up, and if looks could kill…

“Do not rest easy, Goneril. I will be watching you,” is the hissed warning she gets.

 _Two can play that game_.

“Well, maybe _I_ will be the one watching _you_ ,” Hilda snaps back, and Hubert gets that startled look on his face that Holst’s hounds would get when you barked back at them. Of course she had no intention of wasting her life keeping tabs on the sleazy man, but she gets _some_ satisfaction from him thinking she might. From his reaction, she assumes not many tried to flip Hubert’s threats on him.

“Caspar, come.” Hubert gives her one last parting glare before storming off. Caspar looks like he wants to stay and catch up, maybe, but defying orders from a livid Hubert seemed like a bad idea, so he obliges.

Hilda stands there, feeling a little dazed. _What the hell just happened_? She almost forgets the head of Edelgard’s personal guard is still there, but the woman quickly asserts her presence with a grounding touch. 

Ladislava claps her, _hard_ , on the back, and speaks cheerfully.

“Welcome to the Adrestian army!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i,,, guess this is sort of an interest check to see if the tag is dead or if there's an audience for another hilda/edelgard story. i dont really interact with the fandom so idk if people have moved on ?? is regular content still being produced for FE3H ???
> 
> regardless, i needed to get this out of my system, bc i personally am still in hildagard hell, so!! enjoy.
> 
> ps.- In canon Hilda is the second shortest character, but for the sole reason of infuriating the Adrestian Emperor, she is Tall and obnoxious about it in this fic :)))


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After her forced conscription into the Adrestian Army, Hilda must prove her worth by teaching an advanced axe class.

**2**

As if things couldn’t possibly get _more_ awkward, Hilda gets her old room back.

Yes, the one that shared a wall with the emperor of Adrestia.

She’d half expected Edelgard to take over the Archbishop’s bedchamber, that massive room on the third floor that was strictly off-limits, the same that Claude had dragged her to a couple of times to snoop around Rhea’s belongings. To this day, Hilda still got random waves of anxiety over the daring excursion, and wonders why in the blazes she ever agreed to it. Seeing where the Archbishop retired for the night hadn’t been nearly as exciting as Claude had painted it out to be.

For whatever reason, the Black Eagles leader had decided to keep her accommodations the same as their school days. Rest assured, Hilda was not planning any assassinations or anything like that, but it was still _strange_. Stranger still that Edelgard did not object when Lysithea gave Hilda her room back, after living in it for two years.

‘ _It would be weird if I kept it now that you’re here_ ,’ had been the Ordelia girl’s explanation when she moved out. Technically, Lysithea had lived in it for far longer than Hilda ever had, but she must have her reasons.

Hilda suspected her former classmate wanted to return to her original room on the first floor on account of a certain tiny mage from Fhirdiad, the one Lysithea always had the biggest crush on, just to be near her. To a degree, it was understandable. Plus, if climbing the stairs had been the bane of Hilda’s existence while attending school here, it must’ve been torture for Lysithea. The younger girl always did get winded whenever she had to tackle more than one flight.

 _Anyway_ , she had been here a whooping total of _one_ week and already Hilda’s new normal was proving to be quite challenging, as Hubert threw a _fit_ about the rooms. Sadly for both of them, since Edelgard had no issue with the arrangement, he found other ways to make his displeasure known.

And _that’s_ how Hilda got stuck with the 7AM training session for advanced axe users.

In light of the above, she’s making her way to the booked grounds at the halfway mark, fashionably late. Despite the ungodly hour, Marianne accompanies her, still in that weird mood of self-flagellation over Hilda’s fate. She enjoys the company, always does, but it’s starting to appear as if the Edmund girl is more upset at the situation than even she.

And Hilda is _pre-tty_ fucking upset.

“ _Please_ , stop beating yourself up about this,” Hilda sighs as they trot down the stairs. “I told you, if anything, I’m mad at Mr. Leader Man. Like, Claude’s a smart cookie. He knew this would happen, and he still asked me to come.”

What frustrated her the most was that his motives were a complete and utter mystery. Safely bringing Marianne here she could understand, _but the rest_? This put Holst in an uncomfortable spot, for now the pro-Imperial lords (see: Gloucester and Edmund) would think him an ally, and the ones that opposed the Empire (namely, Ordelia and Daphnel) would not trust him. Holst had been campaigning for neutrality, but now the balance had tipped. Riegan was pretty much out of the picture, with his grandson gone, it meant no suitable heir, he was done for. Hilda was still dreading a reply to her letter informing her brother of the situation.

“N-no, Hilda, it’s… this is… this is my fault,” Marianne clasps her hands under her chin, and her eyes flutter shut. Hilda has to grip her by the shoulders and maneuver her to the side so she doesn’t crash against a pillar on the way, “I prayed to the goddess…” she suddenly stops when they’re right outside the training grounds, and Hilda has to lean in to hear her whispered confession, “…I prayed t-that you… that you would remain by my side… to keep helping me… I was, um. I-it was selfish of me…”

“Oh,” Hilda says. Part of her finds the sentiment to be unbelievably cute, but the rest of her is irritated that Marianne believes so fervently in all that crap, that she’s blaming herself and suffering because of some higher power. She tugs Marianne’s hands away from her face and tips her chin to look Hilda in the eye, “The goddess doesn’t always answer prayers, Mari. Life has a funny way of being abhorrent all on its own. Contrary to what Edelgard might think, the goddess isn’t to blame for _every_ bad thing.”

“Blaspheming so early in the morning, _ladies_?” somehow, Sylvain Gautier made his way down the stairs that led to the sauna and down the path just in time to catch the last of their conversation. His hair is damp, a little longer than it had been (making him resemble the late Miklan, _um_ ) but he remains mostly unchanged. The dopey smile on his face is much too bright, given the criminal hour, but Hilda is secretly glad to see a friendly face. She doesn’t let him know this, though.

Hilda squints up at him, “Didn’t you sign up for my axe thing? You’re like forty minutes late.”

“Heh, well, I could say the same thing about you,” he raises his eyebrows, “aren’t _you_ the teacher?”

“Allegedly.”

His grin only widens, gorgeous and crooked. “Missed you, Hilda. Really did. I like the shirt.” She does not miss the way his dark eyes give her a hearty one-over, and she flips him off. Then they shift over to Marianne, and they soften, “You, too, Mari. So nice that you joined us. My favorite Golden Deer gals!”

Hilda rolls her eyes, and they land on the polished bronze door. She bites her lip. “Would it be in poor taste if I just… didn’t show?”

“Seeing as you’re the instructor, pretty much, yeah.” Sylvain says.

“Edelgard is going to be mad…” Marianne adds.

“She’s not gonna be here,” Hilda grumbles. _As if_ she needed any more reminders for her already foul mood. “Hubert is _testing me_ with other members of the army until Her Imperial Pain deigns me good enough to teach _her_.”

Sylvain whistles, “ _Her Imperial Pain_ has a nice ring to it!” he then leans down conspiratorially, his voice low, “You know… if you _really_ don’t want to go in, I can think of a better use of both of our time.”

 _Once_. She had hooked up with this man _once_ , during the worst nine minutes of her life, and now he took it upon himself to proposition her at every turn. Hilda shoves his face away, “It is _seven in the morning_ , Sylvain Jose Gautier. Can’t you think with the head that’s on your shoulders, instead of the one inside your pants, for a change?”

The taller man barks out a laugh and ruffles her hair, “ _Oh_ , did I miss you, Hilda!”

*** * ***

After saying goodbye to Marianne, they step into the training grounds to find it in pure chaos.

Her class managed to find interesting ways to amuse themselves with no authority –she used the term _very_ loosely– around. Caspar was chasing Annie with a training sword covered in gunk of some kind, while Petra egged him on in another language. With one hand, Raphael was stacking training dummies into a perilous house of cards, taller than even he, while munching away on a meat skewer with the other.

 _Goddess, is this what Byleth felt like, day after day_? Hilda suppresses a groan, and feels Sylvain’s sympathetic hand on her shoulder, probably letting her know his shitty offer still stands. In another life, Hilda might have been right there with them, causing mayhem with a certain green-eyed boy, but today, it was her turn to be the adult. _Ugh_.

She’s about to go purple in the face from the call to order she’s about to unleash, but with things as wild as they were, everything quite literally falls into place. One of the arms of the dummies is sticking out, and Annette stumbles on it, causing the whole thing to collapse. One rolls just far enough for Caspar to trip and go flying, bringing Petra down with him in a tangle of limbs. The sword he’d been chasing Annie with, covered in what Hilda now knows to be seaweed, skitters across the floor and stains Sylvain’s shiny boots with the rotten algae.

“Ow! Petra, you’re crushing me!” Caspar thrashes under the Brigid princess, “move your ass!”

Petra gasps and elbows him in the gut, “I will not be doing the dancing for you!”

“T-that’s not what I—”

“Oi! You lot ruined my tower!” Raphael finishes the last of his breakfast and sticks the finished brochette on the ground. “Now I’m gonna have to start all over!”

“All you, Professor Goneril. Please, dazzle us with your expertise,” as innocuous as his joke is, Sylvain’s words are enough to get Hilda to square her shoulders and get her shit together. She tries to channel professor Byleth, Manuela, Hanneman, all of them– she takes one deep breath and marches up to them.

“HEY! What in the _hell_ are you guys doing?!”

Well, so much for eloquence.

Disastrous as they may be, at the end of the day they _are_ Her Majesty’s trained soldiers, taught at the best Academy in the continent, and all of them scramble to attention as Hilda’s voice rings out. Raphael kicks his skewer thingy out of sight, and the original Black Eagles help each other stand after their tumble.

“Hilda!”

Annette pulls her into a hug, perhaps relieved that Caspar’s reign of terror was over. After Sylvain, she was the second Blue Lion that Hilda was closest to, her nap buddy from what felt like a zillion years ago. Goddess, it was nice to see her. Hilda’s sole week as a reluctant member of the Imperial army had been kind of a whirlwind, truth be told, most of which she spent moping, and she hadn’t had time to get reacquainted with most of her friends from back in the day.

Hilda can’t hide her surprise as she hugs the tiny mage back, “You have experience with axes? I thought you were a magic user.”

“I do! I am! I wanna get my certifications for Gremory sometime soon. But, the axes… it’s weird, right? And there’s a reason for it…” by the way she pouts, Hilda knows she’s about to delve into some wacky reason, “Edelgard eventually wants me to reclaim Crusher. Ya know, the creepy Heroes’ Relic of House Dominic! My uncle kinda has it at the moment. Um, of course, he’s sided with Dimitri,” the younger mage winces, “he… he doesn’t want to give it to me, you see. But I need to get my skill up in axes if I am to have any hope of wielding it.”

Hilda lets the words wash over her, as many of them as were delivered to her in such a short window of time. The fact that Annette defected from her home country is maybe not as surprising as it should be– with a father like _that_ , who picked Dimitri and duty and guilt and shame over his actual family, over and over, it was no wonder his only daughter had turned her back on him as well.

“Hilda,” the mauve eyes of the princess of Brigid draw her attention next, “I was sorry to be hearing about Claude leaving. He… was a friend. I am remembering his kind heart.”

Hilda has complicated, mixed feelings about Mr. von Riegan, but the sweet sentiment seems to lift the boulder crushing her soul after his betrayal, if only a little. Claude had been friendly with Petra, that much was true. It had been nice that he’d warmed up to people outside of their House, despite his natural distrust of others. Hilda thought maybe he was interested in forming a strategic relationship with Brigid’s heir, seeing as he was to be a leader himself.

Too bad Edelgard had to go and start a continental war, huh?

“Yeah, well. It’s that giving heart of his that got me here.” Hilda says, offering a tight smile. If Petra catches the undercurrent of venom in her voice, she gives no indication of it.

 _Okay_ , she needed to cool it. Letting her personal feelings spring up on her very first day of lessons could only end in an earful from Hubert if she let those thoughts get the better of her. Or even _worse_ , word could get back to Ladislava. Despite not knowing Holst’s school friend very well, some primal part of her did not want to let the stern woman down. Losing her favor could mean ending up in the dungeon, which wasn’t ideal… and Hilda absolutely did not wish to give Lord Vestra the satisfaction.

“Man, I wonder what he’s up to? Claude, I mean. What’d he lose beyond the border, anyway?” Raphael stretches, still massive as ever. He seems to have ditched the ill-fitting shirt with the strained buttons in favor of a dark one that stitched on the front with a sturdy material. As much as she’d enjoyed the view of his muscles pulling against the fabric, it had been a hazard when they inevitably popped loose, almost costing Lorenz an eye once.

Part of Byleth’s strategy for recruiting the sweet giant back in the day had consisted on returning to him the wooden buttons that tended to get lost around the monastery. Those acts of kindness, plus the frequent meals he was invited to by Professor Eisner, inevitably won Raphael’s heart over to the Black Eagles.

And here he was still, two years later, in memory of the late teacher. Hilda tries not to let it sting when she replies, “Oh, haven’t you heard? He’s in the process to become _the King of Almyra_.”

“ _Wow_ , I thought that was a rumor. He didn’t seem the kingly type. Good for him!”

“Why’re we talking about that guy?” Caspar shoulders his way into the small circle that had formed, holding a training axe. Hilda hadn’t paid a lot of attention before, but Caspar’s undercut and the bulk he put on the past couple of years have done wonders to his looks. She wonders if he’d be embarrassed if she pointed out how handsome he was getting. Hilda can’t help but smile when he yells out, “Let’s fight!!”

Caspar’s energy at the tender hour of almost-8AM is admirable, and it’s also contagious.

“I completely agree,” Hilda says, “let’s go break some stuff.”

*** * ***

In a fun turn of events, it seemed to be universally agreed upon that everyone in the improvised axe club wanted to see her use Freikugel.

“The Lance of Ruin has… not the best of memories for me,” Sylvain admits, the understatement of the century. “But the Goneril relic is wicked cool.”

“And it’s, you know, not the biggest eyesore out there,” Annette adds. Hilda had only ever seen drawings and diagrams of the legendary Crusher, and yeah, it was by far the ugliest. Like, Hilda essentially found _all of them_ repulsive, but Dominic’s was a whole new level of hideous.

The remaining three, crestless as they were, seemed excited about the relic as well. And who was Hilda to deny the people what they wanted? With Hubert’s reluctant approval, she retrieves her trusty weapon from the vault it had been locked in, and for the next few days, Hilda does the unthinkable: _she tries_.

She tries her darndest to capture their interest, transmit to them whatever new knowledge she can offer. She puts in tremendous effort to make the best out of an albeit terrible situation, and gives her all to emulate the Black Eagle’s teacher. Hilda wasn’t his student, but it still makes her sad to think about the mercenary getting blown to bits by the Immaculate One. She hopes he found some peace in the afterlife. So she’s set on honoring Byleth’s memory, may he forgive her for refusing his request for transfer over and over.

Since everyone already knows more or less what they’re doing, they progress at a good pace. Annette is the least experienced, so Hilda pours in extra time to teach her the basics from the ground up. The closest to Hilda’s style is Raph, as they were both from the Alliance, and they shared the same fundamental ideas, mostly had the same roots. Hilda was more polished in some aspects, hailing from nobility and all, but for a merchant’s kid Raphael was pretty good at what he did.

The Faerghians were a lot more… _boring_ , standard. Their every move could be found in a book, with zero creativity involved. Not that there was anything _wrong_ with that, per se, their method certainly got the job done– it was just kind of a drag to both witness and fight against.

Caspar and Petra’s fighting styles were the most interesting, especially the latter– there was something fascinating about the deadly precision that the Brigid princess brought, the way she carried herself. It felt like Leonie’s, like she was hunting rather than trying to overpower. She often picked lighter, weaker axes to try and double hit her opponent– it wasn’t Hilda’s preferred strategy, but the younger girl was so _fast_ , that in the end it complimented her natural speed, and she mostly got away with it. Caspar’s technique resembled Hilda in the chaotic sense of his moves– he followed his gut, he adapted to his opponent, he was mostly unpredictable. His weakness lay in that he was sort of a glass canon– unlike Hilda’s sturdy Goneril build, who could certainly take a beating despite appearing so dainty.

So Hilda found an area of opportunity to teach them something brand-new– she turned to the Almyran style.

When the war started, back when Hilda still had hope that they could resist the Empire’s advance, the Alliance’s finest set to work in Derdriu. It was in the aquatic capital that Claude introduced her to a grizzly man he referred to as his “old combat instructor.” The man grinned at her like he knew her, like some long-lost uncle, but the gleam in his dark eyes was cold. Her house leader had asked them to spar together, just a friendly set.

‘ _Friendly set_.’

The man fought like a demon. It was this that gave him away, for Hilda had been _precisely_ raised on ways to counter this very style of combat above all others. In a crude sense, it’s what her family was bred for. His footwork was maybe the most impressive she had ever seen, and the way he controlled the momentum behind his strikes left her struggling to block and gather her wits. Something about the way he moved reminded Hilda of her brother, like his style was a hybrid of cultures. Her suspicions were confirmed when the man released a booming laugh, “ _So General Holst’s little sister is not all bark! I like it_!”

Maybe for the best, that instance had ended in a draw, with Claude praising them in equal measure. Hilda had emerged from the encounter with a new friend –none other than _Nader_ , Holst’s archnemesis– and a dozen Almyran maneuvers to catch future opponents off-guard. Later, when he warmed up to her, the older man took it upon himself to personally tutor her on the eastern ways of battle, along with who he knew as _Khalid_. It had been _deeply_ weird at first, and Hilda had to work through a lot of internalized notions about the neighboring country. Nader had later explained that, being a warrior-oriented culture, Holst was quite popular in Almyra, despite the tension between the two countries– formidable warriors were well-respected, regardless of their origins.

Thinking about those days now left an angry churning in her belly, as they had ended with Claude’s bitter words and blazing eyes, claiming that this backwards country would never change under the current Alliance lord’s prejudices– right before he stormed out of the roundtable and Hilda’s entire world flipped on its head.

As she teaches the other Fodlan natives, she tries not to let the impostor syndrome creeping inside her grow worse. Here she was, sharing Claude’s culture in a way, their ways of war, _she_ , the daughter of the guardians to the border. Nader had not said anything about their combat strategies being a secret or anything, but it still didn’t feel like the most proper thing to do.

Hilda sighs, dispelling the thoughts. She had to focus on her task at hand. The moody Goneril tries to concentrate on demonstrating to her class _exactly_ how to trip up an opponent with the head of the axe without slicing their heel open.

“I don’t get it,” Caspar says from his spot sprawled out in the dirt, after Hilda showed off the maneuver on him, “why _wouldn’t_ you want to maim them?”

“There could be loads of reasons,” Hilda twirls Freikugel’s familiar weight resting over her shoulder, “maybe you’re sparring, and you don’t wanna hurt them… or you need them alive, as a prisoner, but able to walk? A heavy blow could get messy, make them bleed out? You know?”

“Ah,” Caspar says, probably still wondering despite her explanations, why _wouldn’t_ you want to maim them anyway?

A yelp rings out from behind them and Hilda turns in time to watch as Sylvain’s lanky frame hits the ground, with a dull _thump_ and a cloud of dust. Annette stands over him, clutching a blunted axe, her mouth forming a small ‘ _o_ ’.

“ _Ow_ , Annie, what the hell?”

“This technique is _fun_ ,” Annette’s light eyes shine with mirth as she raises her head to offer a proud smile, “I think I’ve got it, Hilda!”

Annette had started out as the weak link, barely knowing how to hold the weapon, but her progress was the fastest and she was also the most hardworking. At the rate the tiny mage was going, she would be able to reclaim Crusher and use it with ease very, very soon.

“See? Shortest person in the monastery just got one of the tallest to eat shit,” Hilda drawls, nudging Caspar’s ribs with the tip of her boot, “didn’t actually hurt him. It takes skill not to nick someone’s foot and draw blood– it’s about controlling the head of the axe, wielding it like it’s an extension of your arm.”

Sylvain groans dramatically, “Hey, I’m plenty hurt! My ego, mostly, but I’ll live—”

Before Sylvain can do something stupid, like ask someone to kiss it better, a spinning axe goes flying on the space right above him, making the Faerghian let out a terrified squeal at how it almost grazes him. The spinning weapon ultimately loses momentum and lands harmlessly on the dirt. He has the good sense to stay flattened against the ground as a second one follows, and this one lands on a target across the room.

“I have much expertise now,” Petra brags, totally unfazed by how she could’ve just imbedded an axe on the young Gautier’s body if Sylvain had stood up too fast. “I am winning our wager.”

Raphael sighs and pulls out one of those necklaces his sister makes from his pocket, “Alright, alright, Petra. Your training was better, _this time_.”

“ _STOP THROWING SHIT! LET ME STAND_.”

Things were going great!

*** * ***

Things were going so well, that Hilda decides to treat herself to whatever sugary thing she can find in the dining hall after a _long_ day.

Contrary to Hubert’s not-so-subtle suggestion that she be watched at all times, Hilda had been left mostly to her own devices. At the end of each session, some Imperial guard would arrive to lock up the weapons used that day, and take Freikugel down to the special vault, but that’s about as strict as things got. She was even allowed to go to the village, as long as someone from the Strike Force was with her. But she did not do it often, because one abnormally pale man usually volunteered for the job, and she did not enjoy spending time with Lord Vestra if she could avoid it.

Hilda usually joined one of her friends for dinner, but today she feels like having a quiet snack by herself, so she makes sure to arrive right before the dining hall is supposed to close for the day. As expected, it’s not busy, and she manages to snag a trio of buns that have been left out on a tray.

The pastries are originally from Faerghus, she’s pretty sure, subtly sweet and very simple, and Hilda knows the former Blue Lions enjoyed them a ton. Even Marianne liked them on occasion, the only Golden Deer who did. She considers just hiding them and taking them up to her room, when a voice carries across the dining hall and thoroughly crushes her contraband plans.

“Oi, little Goneril! Join us.”

Hilda spins on her heel to find a smiling Ladislava drinking from a mug topped with foam. She hadn’t realized how _tall_ the older woman was until Hilda sees her standing next to a man that’s about Hilda’s exact height, clean-shaven and honestly a little baby faced. The last thing she wants to do is join these imperial loyalists, despite Ladislava’s connection to her brother, but Hilda was anything if not the perfectly polite daughter of a Duke, and so she skips on over.

“Hi! How are you guys?”

The man turns to Ladislava with his brows furrowed, “ _Saints_ , you’re right. She’s a carbon copy of Holst.”

Hilda keeps her smile frozen on her face, but part of her eye twitches. Was there anything _worse_ in the entire world than getting compared to her super impressive, accomplished older brother? In her book, _carbon copy_ wasn’t a compliment. She was her own person, for Macuil’s sake!

“Indeed! When we met, I saw a brilliant opportunity,” the general’s crimson eyes glitter in a way Hilda doesn’t like, but the older woman quickly plasters on another smile, “Anyhow! Introductions are in order… Hilda, this is Randolph von Bergliez, commander of the auxiliary regiments.”

“Oh.” Hilda tilts her head in confusion, trying to see even a hint of Caspar in this man’s appearance. She couldn’t think of someone with Goneril blood in them that didn’t have even a smidge of pink in them, their genes were just that strong. All this person had in common with her friend seemed to be their name, but she tries to be pleasant about it, “So you must be… Caspar’s… uh, brother?”

“Not quite,” Randolph’s smile is a lot more genuine than Ladislava’s, “step-uncle, more like. My ma married into the family when I was already born. But, hey, wish that I was! He’s a good guy,” he winks at her, and Hilda’s not sure if it’s flirty or if it’s weird uncle-y. “And he tells me you’re teaching them brand-new things! I guess when you’re from a border town, you pick up on some of the neighbor’s moves, huh?”

“My, Almyran combat arts?” Ladislava holds up her mug and raises it at her, “I suppose, with a brother like _that_ , he makes sure his little sister has a well-rounded education.”

 _Holst had nothing to do with that_ , Hilda wants to scream. Learning from Claude’s old teacher had been her own merit. Sure, he was frenemies with her brother, but it was her skill alone that got her to earn Nader’s respect.

“Speaking of, how is he, these days?” Randolph says, “his stance on the war is unfortunate, but I always did respect him as a warrior.”

Before she can respond, Ladislava quickly jumps in as well, “Oh, yes. How _is_ Holst? Does he get the same amount of attention in Goneril territory as he did at the Academy?”

Not the smoothest way to inquire about her brother’s love life, to be sure. Hilda is once more tormented by the fact that her idiot brother may have been romantically linked to Edelgard’s personal guard during his Garreg Mach days.

“It’s not really my business,” Hilda replies, in all honesty. She made it a point not to think about Holst in any context that wasn’t that of a devoted brother or fearsome warrior, “But with Balthus back in our lives, maybe he’ll settle down, finally.”

“Hm, Balthus? You mean Lord Albrecht’s son,” the bitter note in Ladislava’s tone does not go unnoticed, “a troubled kid, that one. No doubt he grew to be a troubled young man, if the bounties on his head are any indication. I know they were childhood friends, but I always did wonder what someone like Holst saw there.”

The Baltie slander is awful, but intent to avoid conflict, the young Goneril takes a bite from her Faerghian buns and swallows down her snippy reply along with it. Hilda wonders if she should begin feigning a headache to escape this unwanted conversation, but as soon as she raises a hand to her temple, Randolph lets out a surprised grunt.

The side of his jaw is suddenly smeared with what looks like jam, and a high-pitched giggle makes them turn. A little girl in pigtails holds a slingshot across from them, blue eyes impish from the prank she just pulled. One hand holds another little cube of ammunition, while the other she uses to pull back the thick rubber band, aiming once more.

Randolph angrily wipes at the side of his face and glowers in her direction, “Hey! Do _not_!”

He’s swiftly ignored. With either amazing accuracy or sheer dumb luck –probably the latter– her next jam shot lands with a _plop_ inside Ladislava’s mug. Hilda lets out a startled laugh at that child having the balls to attack an Imperial general like that. Honestly, Edelgard should put that kid in charge.

“Fleche! It’s past your bedtime!” Randolph scolds the mischievous girl as she runs in the direction of the fishing pond, and promptly gives chase. Over his shoulder, he adds, “It was nice meeting you, Hilda!”

The scene reminds her of her own family, it’s not the exact dynamic, but anyone could see the love there. Hilda tries not to think about how she hadn’t heard back from them after the letter explaining the situation was sent, wonders if Hubert even bothered to send it like he said he would. Hilda blinks, “Was that his daughter?”

“Sister,” Ladislava sits down on the long dining bench and shrugs, “technically, that little girl is Caspar’s step-aunt. Quite amusing, I know.”

Part of her feels like it would be rude to leave the Adrestian drinking alone, so she sits as well. Her Faerghian buns are cold, and she picks at them, suddenly not that hungry.

“So,” Ladislava begins, “I’d been under the impression that your case was like the Edmund girl, in the sense that you transferred to the Black Eagles, but have since been corrected,” Hilda feels deeply uncomfortable at the choice of subject as the Adrestian continues, “stayed true to the Golden Deer, did you?”

“I… was close to Duke Riegan’s grandson.”

 _Khalid_. That’s his real name. But it took her years to find _that_ out.

Ladislava nods, “Of course! We all felt a certain affinity towards the head of our house. I suppose, if he had not been in the picture, then the leadership of the Golden Deer would have gone to you, hm? Or the Gloucester heir,” she drums her fingers against the side of her mug, “Hmm, speaking of house leaders– how about the Emperor? Were you two close, back in school?”

Hilda almost chokes on her sad Faerghian snack, “ _Um_ – not really. We did a few missions together, _buuut_ , uh… I don’t think she likes me very much. Her beloved professor did, though. Byleth. Tried to recruit me a few times.”

Hilda literally represented everything Edelgard was trying to eradicate from the system– the spoiled daughter of a noble with the world figured out, handed to her, requiring no effort or merit on her part. Edelgard’s meritocracy didn’t exactly seem to have a place for people like her.

The older woman ignores the former but seems interested on the second part of what she said, “Ah. I did not get to see much of the mercenary, myself. But I gather Lady Edelgard was quite fond of him.”

 _Obsessed, more like_ , but Hilda doesn’t dare voice it. For the longest time, she had an ongoing bet with Claude on who had the biggest crush on the professor– Leonie or Edelgard. Hilda was out one fat bullion when one morning, a smug Dorothea, neck covered in hickeys, walked into the dining hall with a crimson-faced Imperial princess in tow, flaunting what the two girls had been up to earlier. So, she and Claude basically got confirmation that, on one hand, Edelgard wasn't a _total_ prude, and the second, there was nothing interesting going on with her beloved teacher. Luckily for Hilda's dwindling pockets from stupid gambles, two weeks later, she reclaimed her bullion when Marianne confessed to a messy first kiss with their redheaded classmate.

So, neither of them won _that_ stupid bet, as Byleth’s biggest fans only seemed interested in him platonically. _Boring_.

“Yeah,” Hilda eventually says, surfacing from her own internal dialogue, “she was his favorite student, for sure.”

“Naturally! It is Lady Edelgard we’re talking about. The most diligent, incredible person that I have ever met,” Ladislava all but gushes, and it’s like the peppy version of Hubert, almost. She’d thought the woman kind of cold, at first, but talking about the last Hresvelg sure stirred something in her.

“You don’t say,” Hilda says, her tone devoid of any emotion, but if the older woman cares about her disinterest, she gives no indication of it. She sips her mug, perhaps forgetting the blob of jelly that landed in there from Fleche’s shenanigans.

“My life was forever changed by Her Majesty. It is my pride and honor to fight for the Empire, each and every day, for as long as I can. There is just… so very much to admire about the Emperor.”

Oh, no, oh _no_. Was it _romanticize-Edelgard-hours_? Hilda had to go. She really, really did. Or change the subject. The latter seemed like the better option, as she did not wish to offend the Adrestian.

“So why’d she pick up brawling?” Hilda asks, desperate to derail the conversation. “The other day, you mentioned something about her overdoing it in training?”

Ladislava lets out a breath, and there’s a split second of hesitation before she responds, “The emperor… has been under a lot of stress lately. She is not donning gauntlets and pummeling people on the field, if that is what you’re thinking,” the older woman looks down at her mug and makes a face, finally noticing the intruder, “she just does it to decompress after challenging days. Training bags filled with sand provide little stimulation, and so she seeks suitable adversaries,” somehow, she fishes the glop of jelly out of her mug and flings it away, “Ah! But Her Majesty is very strong… not many can endure an entire session against her.”

By the shady way she basically said not many can keep up, Hilda is led to understand that Edelgard was just beating people unconscious for sport. Right? That’s what this sounded like.

“And you think _I_ can _keep up_?”

“You bear the Crest of Goneril. I understand it is of a defensive nature.”

“I have the minor version,” Hilda says, “plus, I don’t know the first thing about brawling!”

Hilda would forever be salty about the sexist laws of this land regarding the War Master path, which women were barred from. As a kid, she’d been crushed when she learned that she would not be able to follow in Holst’s footsteps, or her father’s, and so she’d avoided gauntlets on principle. There was no point to even put in the work for that weapon. Since she sucked at magic, the War Monk route was also off the table.

“Oh, no, we don’t expect you to _fistfight_ Her Majesty,” Ladislava snickers, even if that’s exactly what she’d been led to believe, “she can blow off steam just as well with axes, or various other weapons. These Almyran techniques of yours should keep her on her toes. I expect you will make a most entertaining opponent.”

Hilda keeps her face carefully neutral, but inside she’s seething. So was she a circus, a punching bag, _what was the deal_? This arrangement got worse and worse by the second.

If she weren’t so mad at Claude, she would wish he were here to bounce ideas with. The two of them could probably figure out what’s wrong with the emperor without actually talking to her. What could have Edelgard with so much rage? Or grief? Guilt, even?

Hm. All roads seemed to lead back to Jeralt’s son…

Before Hilda can excuse herself, Ladislava is back on her dreamy musings about her liege. She had successfully tuned her out without really trying to, but when she forces herself back into the conversation, it’s the same nonsense as before.

“… Lady Edelgard is the first to rise and the last to retire for the night! A true revolutionary should lead by example. I could not ask for a better leader to bring about Fodlan’s new dawn.”

It takes all of Hilda’s self-restraint not to roll her eyes at the gross idealization. She’d shared a wall with that girl for the better part of a year, and that statement was nowhere close to the truth. _However_ , Hilda can, despite everything, _admit_ , that Edelgard has some admirable things going for her. Her focus and ambition towards her goals, her drive to achieve them, her desire to see a more just world– like, Hilda was a little in awe of those.

Yes, there was _good_ there, but also, _not so good_. Her strategy was unlike Dimitri’s lukewarm approach of ‘ _give it time, society will eventually change_ , or Claude’s ‘ _wait for others to put things in motion while I scheme and bide my time’_. Edelgard’s path was the quickest towards a significant change in society… but hers was also the bloodiest, the most brutal and costly. It would upend society as they knew it, but Ladislava probably wasn’t interested in someone playing devil’s advocate. Hilda did _not_ have a death wish, despite what her questionable decisions as of late might suggest.

And so, she swallows her barbed reply and stuffs her cheeks with the last of the pastries, before she bids the general goodnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was rly anxious about posting the first part, so ty everyone that took the time to leave a nice comment, it was v reassuring that there's still an interest for this rarepair!! if lockdown continues where i live i'll prooobably have a new chapter every week, so, some reading material for socially-distanced gatherings w the family.
> 
> -this one has sort of a slow buildup, but i promise there's finally gonna be more hildagard interaction in the next!!
> 
> -also I was Today Years Old when I found out Ladislava is the tallest woman in the game. the more you know!


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sightings of Demonic Beasts with a weakness to axes lead to Hilda teaming up with Edelgard & Co to deal with them. Things go awry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> — there's a POV switch mid-chapter, just a head's up

**3**

It’s not long before Hilda is summoned to Hubert’s office. Edelgard’s manservant had taken over Seteth’s office as his own, which was… kinda icky.

The classic smell of angelic tea and thick, rosy incense has been replaced by that of burned coffee. Mingled in there was the scent of stale paper, as bunches of forbidden books were piled to the ceiling. Hilda recognized the tattered covers from her time down in Abyss, from that shadow library of theirs. It seemed Hubert had an interest in the outlawed material, like Linhardt and Claude did.

“Foul demonic beasts have been spotted on the outskirts of Garreg Mach, threatening the livelihood of the village. Our scouts report that the marks on these beasts reveal a weakness to axes,” Hubert reads off a paper that he pinches between his fingers, perhaps with more force than necessary. His next words reveal the _why_ , “Against all common sense, Her Majesty insists that you and your recently trained group accompany her to vanquish them.”

They had learned that the demonic beasts bore certain marks, with weaknesses to axes, spears, swords, whatever. Byleth had been infamously good at discerning those marks, and he’d deployed his Black Eagles accordingly, carefully choosing their formations to exploit those weaknesses. Professor Manuela, even when sober, had been… not that great in spotting those tells. More often than not, Hilda ended stuck fighting beasts that had seemed immune to her choice of weapon.

“Edelgard? Really?”

Hilda had been here for well over a month, and despite sleeping right next door, she could count in one hand how many times she had seen the Emperor herself. The bossy revolutionary always seemed to be on the move, barking orders, reading reports, coordinating everyone and everything. It was the kind of life that Hilda certainly did not envy in the slightest.

“Yes, really.” His tone is clipped, clearly annoyed. Hubert looks like he swallowed something bitter when he chooses his next words, “It is an opportunity for you to show her your worth. Do not ruin this for her or for yourself,” he hesitates slightly before adding, “this particular mission holds… special interest to her.”

“Why’s that?”

“I am not at liberty to say.”

Figures. It must be something important for the Emperor herself to bother with. If it wasn’t to further the war effort, then surely it was a personal matter? What interest did Edelgard have in a few loose demonic beasts?

Hilda considers his non-answer for a moment before she asks, “Are you coming, too?”

“I must coordinate a related effort elsewhere,” is his cryptic retort.

 _Ugh_.

“Kinda reminiscent of when Rhea would send us students to do her dirty work, don’t you think?” Hilda rocks back on her heels, eyeing the retainer up and down, trying to get a rise out of him. By the way his nostrils quickly flare, she knows she’s succeeded.

“This is nothing like what happened with Lord Lonato, or other missions of the sort, if that’s what you’re implying,” those beady eyes narrow dangerously. “You would do well to hold your tongue. And if you ever so much as _suggest_ that Her Majesty’s army is anything like that of the false prophet—”

Hilda raises her hands in surrender, cutting him off with a bored look. She’d thought provoking Hubert would lift her spirits a little, but since it doesn’t, Hilda does _not_ feel like enduring the incoming lecture, since that’s clearly his angle here. She plucks the report from his hands, gives it a once-over, and makes a face.

Her eyes flick up to meet his, “ _Fine_. We’ll rout the stupid monsters in your stupid forest.”

“Thank you for your stupid cooperation.”

He does a full-body cringe immediately after he says it, and Hilda’s eyes go wide. She doesn’t know if she should laugh or scream, “Wait, _wait_! Are you stooping to my pettiness level?” she presses the report against her chest, mouth comically open, “ _Hubert_ , be honest, here.”

“ _I’m not_.”

“Oh, but _you are_! Goddess. Maybe we _can_ be friends!”

Hubert looks positively revolted at the suggestion, “Lady Goneril. The day I consider you a friend, will be the day pigs fly.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she winks, only to further irritate him, before turning on her heel, “who knows, Hubie? Maybe one of these days, Sylvain will get his certification in flying and soar above our heads on a wyvern!”

The sound of a genuine laugh bursting from him startles them both, and Hilda freezes on her way out. She looks at him over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised. Hubert makes a sound like he’s choking.

“Not. Friends. Go. _Now_.”

Shit. Turns out old Bert was growing on her, kinda like a fungus.

*** * ***

The march to the forest is awkward, mostly because Hilda somehow ends up walking beside Edelgard, and gifted as she was, small-talk is _not_ one of the emperor’s strong suits. In truth, Hilda could probably pick up the slack, maybe even carry a one-sided conversation, but she’s still sulking about being conscripted into her army and all, so she lets the other girl stew in the stifling tension.

“Have you heard back from your brother?”

“No.”

“Ah. Strange.”

Hilda considers not answering, but something ugly and insecure crawls out of her throat, “Maybe he disowned me, and he’s just too embarrassed to tell me, you know?”

Something like guilt flashes across Edelgard’s face, but it’s gone just as fast. Those pretty lavender eyes of hers meet Hilda’s with a slight frown, “I do not think Holst would do that to you.”

“And never in a million years did it occur to my brother that I’d be joining the Imperial army, but. _Here we are_!”

“Your circumstances were explained in the letter that was sent, I’m told.” Edelgard’s frown deepens. Said letter had been coerced out, up to the point that it was barely recognizable as hers, save for Hilda’s signature at the end. Hubert himself oversaw the task, and every time she so much as attempted to convey her anger, or at the very least, call the Adrestian’s mean names, he forced her to write a new one. Every single word in that letter had been approved by the Marquis, so the _real_ stakes of her situation and her innermost feelings had been too glossed over, or just not mentioned.

Hilda averts her gaze, tracing the upcoming forest as the chatter from those behind them fades into the background. All of them were coming on foot, as Edelgard insisted that she did not want to alert the monsters in the forest of their presence. It was… a strange request. It’s not like the creatures had enough braincells to know if a pegasus was wild or tamed, and it made Hilda think that there was something –or some _one_ – else that the emperor did not wish to alert. Only people would much care if a wyvern had a rider or not.

Edelgard follows her line of sight and tilts her head, “Thinking of running away?”

“Why, yes, Edelgard.” Hilda makes sure every single one of her words is more scalding than the last, “How did you know that I dream of running into the wilderness to live out my days as a hermit—”

“Hilda, shut up.”

“ _Oh_! Don’t you _shush me_ —”

Her protest dies muffled behind Edelgard’s gloved hand, and what hits her first is the _smell_. The presence of demonic beasts tended to be given away by their odor of rot and metal, as their lack of manners when decimating a person tended to leave pieces of people stuck to their talons, fur or fangs. It wasn’t unusual to see bits of a corpse adorning the hellish creatures, almost like trophies. “ _Holy Seiros_ , it reeks!” Caspar’s hot breath behind her makes the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end.

A few seconds pass and Hilda’s eyes go wide as she can finally place actual shapes to match the nauseating smell. Sure enough, she can now see that the outskirt of the forest is crawling with demonic beasts– just as Hubie had promised, all of them with a weakness to axes. It’s wolves and birds, today. No reptiles.

“Six total,” Edelgard murmurs, and offers a fleeting look of apology when Hilda pries the hand that was still clamped over her mouth. The emperor adjusts her grip on Aymr, “Sylvain and Annette, pair up. I trust the rest of you can handle combat one-on-one?”

It was a solid plan. Annette’s newly-acquired Bolt Axe made her pretty deadly, as it drew power from her magic, but her trajectory as a mage still made her physical defenses quite weak, so having Sylvain as an adjutant was a good strategy. Besides that, Hilda was fairly confident the rest of them could tango with a demonic beast well enough, especially given their weapon advantage.

Upon receiving several nods of confirmation, Edelgard gives the signal to advance, “Very well. Let’s go.”

*** * ***

Their assault quickly delves into a bloodbath– but thankfully, it’s entirely in their favor.

Beasts are dealt with in what might be described as an orderly fashion. Hilda hears pained yelps and deafening roars in equal measure, but so far, everyone seems to be holding their own. The Alliance noble stuns her shrieking bird long enough to witness Edelgard dispatch her opposing wolf with a flurry of her secret, unique move, _the Raging Storm_ , only possible because of her personal relic. Hilda didn’t know much about Aymr, but she does see the Crest of Seiros activate more than once.

The Emperor is so efficient in what she does, that when she finishes, she rushes over to where Hilda is and helps her overwhelm her own foe. The last and only time she had fought alongside Edelgard, had been during their excursion to the underground labyrinth of Garreg Mach, under Byleth’s direction. They don’t make a half bad team, honestly. As they’re the first two to finish, they have plenty of time to go over and help the others.

Their victory is short-lived, however, as _more_ murderous creatures emerge from the forest.

Well over half of them still bear a weakness to axes, as Hubert’s scouts had said, but Hilda spies a few that are _not_. Luckily, most of their team brought along other weapons. Petra whips out a Blessed bow and Sylvain does the same, but with the lance version. Annette puts away her axe to start firing Seraphims before they can be overrun.

As Hilda cleaves in half yet another disgusting creature and retrieves the rare ore it carried, she meets Edelgard’s eyes across the chaotic field, and jogs in her direction. The younger girl is fighting _two_ at once, and instead of looking relieved for Hilda’s help, the Emperor points towards the forest in a frenetic manner. She mouths something soundlessly, and Hilda can’t quite catch it with the clang of metal and the clamor of battle, but she gets close enough to read her lips.

“ _Caspar_.”

Hilda digs her heels in, changes her course. Despite being seemingly cornered by two beasts, if Edelgard was telling her to look for Caspar instead, then there must be a reason for it, so she obeys. It’s hard not to feel guilty when she abandons the busy battlefield and steps into the quiet of the forest, but the feeling doesn’t last long. Soon enough, trudging through soft mud and fallen leaves, she stumbles upon Caspar kneeling behind a bush, spying on a clearing.

The blue-haired man hears her approaching and brings a finger up to his lips, gestures at her to duck down and join him, so she does. If the guy who thought being as loud as possible powered up his punches told you to be quiet, then you shouldn’t even question the request. You just do it.

Hilda peeks over the thicket to see exactly what they were dealing with. It’s a tiny clearing, but big enough that she can spot a gathered circle of dark mages, chanting away. At first, Hilda thinks they’re wearing leather gloves– but upon further inspection realizes it’s their bare _hands_ , and they look like they’re about to fall off from frostbite, blackened and ugly. _Ew_.

There’s four of them total, and their all-black garb and masked faces sends an unpleasant shiver down her spine. “Do you think they’re powering up the beasts?” Hilda whispers.

Stuff like this had happened before, as magic users could pull all sorts of weird tricks. When the stuff involving the Western Church at Castle Gaspard went down, killing a key mage had triggered the end of the thick fog that had slowed the advance of the students on that mission. With the fog gone, Thunder Catherine had wasted no time in gutting the man who’s son she got killed years before.

“Dunno,” Caspar says back, his hands twitching inside their gauntlets, “but we need to take them out.”

“No, wait.” Hilda lowers herself back to his eye-level, “What if they’re sorcery engineers from Hubert’s battalion? They sure dress the part, don’t they?”

“Uhh, could be. But I don’t think we risk it.”

“But… like, I’ve seen them around the monastery. How do you know they’re bad guys?” 

“How about a compromise?” Caspar says, his tone dead serious. “I’ll kill them first, and if it turns out they were friendly, I’ll apologize.”

“No!” Hilda insists.

Caspar shakes his head, visibly disregarding her words for caution. He jumps to his feet and roars, “HEY, ASSHOLES!”

The chanting stops abruptly, and the sinister hum of dark magic suddenly fills the air.

What a way to make their presence known.

The pink-and-blue duo blur together as they narrowly duck out of the way when a blast of Miasma is launched their way. The combined efforts of the mages completely scorches the bush they’d been hiding behind, and singe the grass beneath. No words or strategizing ensues as the two nobles spring into action.

Hilda dispatches the closest one with a heavy upswing of her axe, practically tearing their head off, and from somewhere to her right, she can hear the squishy sound of Caspar’s fists connect against flesh, ending another life. He curses as his silver gauntlets break after the deed, having used up the last of them, and so he pulls out a trusty axe.

The remaining mages, probably sensing that they’re very much next, scramble back, and Hilda advances on the nearest one.

Before she can swing, a wispy ball of purple that she soon realizes is the Swarm spell shoots out of her opponent’s fingertips, engulfing her in a small swirl of magical locusts. Hilda shrieks as a chorus of buzzing and actual magic-damage assaults her senses, momentarily giving her pause. She wasn’t the most resilient when it came to enduring magical attacks, but the hex is weak enough that a good shake of her body dispels most of it.

Even behind the mask, the goon looks startled that the spell did so little damage. Hilda offers them a wink, the last they’ll ever see, before bringing her axe down for a clean kill. She can’t help but gloat a little, “Sorry, did I hurt you?”

A few feet away, Caspar’s grunt of effort makes her head turn. Hilda watches as the former Black Eagle hooks the head of his axe behind the mage’s feet, but instead of severing them off, he strategically pulls back only to trip them, and the sorcerer lands _hard_ on their back. Blue eyes dart up to meet hers, all smiles, “Oh yeah! Nailed it!”

“I’ll keep this one alive for questioning,” the younger boy continues, his boot pressed against the last mage’s windpipe. Hilda smiles back briefly, he looked so proud at applying what he’d learned in class. She wonders if this is what Byleth felt when his students mastered a move he taught them. A normal blow would’ve perhaps made the mage bleed out from hitting an artery, or straight up die from the shock at having his feet so violently cut off.

The fallen man gurgles something, so Caspar furrows his brows and leans down, rummages around the mage’s coat as if looking for something. The mask is askew, and Caspar’s movement causes Hilda’s eyes to suddenly land on the prisoner’s pink-tinged teeth.

 _He’s mouthing words_.

She’s too slow both in her warning and in the tomahawk she chucks at him, for the Bergliez heir gets blasted point-blank with dark magic. Caspar’s entire frame crashes against a faraway tree with a sickening crunch, and as he slides down, trail of crimson behind him, Hilda watches in acute horror as he starts bleeding from somewhere in the head, like an egg cracked open.

Hilda’s ranged weapon connects, the attacker dies, but it’s a scant second too late.

She rushes to the crumpled form of the War Master, and silently curses Hubert’s name for only giving her a Vulnerary over a stronger healing Elixir. She dribbles some of the potion over his chapped lips, but it’s nowhere near enough. Hilda cranes her head back, considers looting the corpses of the hooded mages, to see if they had any useful items on them, but finds herself alone.

They disappeared.

It takes some restraint to stop herself from obsessing over the implications of _that_. Caspar needed her full attention. A crumpled paper around his closed fist catches Hilda’s attention, as it’s what distracted him in the first place, and she unfolds it.

It’s a crude drawing of a couple of crests. The smaller of the two she immediately recognizes as the Crest of Seiros, having grown up under organized religion. The other is a design Hilda can’t immediately place, but she doesn’t worry over it, as her brain is occupied by more pressing matters. Blood –Caspar’s blood– has seeped into the corners, and the visual is enough to remind her of the emergency at hand, and she pockets it for later inspection.

The youngest Goneril is desperate enough to maybe try her hand at a healing spell. She’d accompanied Marianne to a couple of Faith seminars to ease the Edmund girl’s anxieties, and knows the basics of a Heal, but thankfully for them both, they’re quickly joined by the others.

“Hilda…? _Caspar_!”

Their team, looking worse for wear, walk into the clearing, arms full of ore. The precious materials are soon dropped at their feet as they rush to crowd around them. Annette’s hand, already aglow with a healing spell, is the first to reach them. The second is Sylvain’s, who knew the spell from when he dabbled as a magic user, but ultimately settled for the path of a Paladin.

Hilda feels paralyzed as the white magic washes over Caspar. He grunts softly and his brow twitches, which is an excellent sign, all things considered. He was alive, for now. Hilda blinks back tears and just holds his head, tries to ignore the hair at the back of his skull that is matted with blood.

“What happened here?” Edelgard’s horned crown is skewed to the side, her silver hair loose from its buns. The look is messy, but she looks less stern and prim than when it’s properly coiled. Hilda suddenly feels tongue-tied for more than one reason.

“It’s– we were– their ritual– the mages…!”

“Enemies?” Petra gets into a defensive stance, sword raised as she starts walking the perimeter of the small clearing, Raphael in tow. They do a small sweep before both of them shake their heads, and Raph even tacks on a thumbs-down. Hilda’s stomach does an unpleasant flip at the information. There should be pools of blood around at the very least, _goddess_ , she’d nearly beheaded some of them.

“Hilda, there’s nothing here.” 

* * *

They get back to the Monastery in a flurry of chaos, with Petra and Sylvain running ahead to alert the medics of their arrival. Edelgard fights down the urge to feel guilty and miserable after it was she who insisted against bringing means of transportation, such as horses or wyverns. Every second was precious when it came to saving Caspar’s life, and if he didn’t make it due to her poor judgement, she would never forgive herself.

Linhardt is the first to greet them, right at the gates, expression grim and frame slightly shaking. Edelgard tries not to wince at how he must be feeling upon seeing his childhood best friend and current lover broken and bloodied, as Lin wasn’t a fan of blood to begin with.

Mercedes and Marianne flank his sides, healing spells at the ready. They quickly dive forward to assist Raphael in lowering the unconscious Bergliez to a wheeled gurney that’s prepped and waiting. Right there with them is Hilda, who hasn’t left Caspar’s side for the journey back. If Raphael had not insisted so strongly, she probably would have carried the younger boy here herself.

Marianne is quick to notice her friend’s crushed expression, “Hilda! Oh, goddess, what happened?”

“There– there was. An ambush. Some dark mages, in the forest, they—”

“What did he get hit with?” Linhardt’s voice is eerily calm, and he nudges Hilda aside, not unkindly, to cast his own Heal on the blue-haired man’s head. The latter groans, which makes Edelgard feel somewhat hopeful.

Hilda’s voice still has that hysterical edge from the forest, “It– it was like the moon. Um, Lysithea knows that spell—”

“Luna,” Linhardt deadpans, adjusts his glowing hand, “ah, quite advanced. Judging by the damage, he was hit at close range. Dark mages, you said?”

Hilda’s mouth pops open to reply, but Lin quickly changes his mind, “Actually, save it for later. He needs surgery. You’ll have to tell me all about it when chunks of my boyfriend’s brains aren’t being spilled on the gurney. Thank you.”

Edelgard knows he doesn’t mean to appear insensitive or harsh, that’s just how Linhardt _was_ , but Hilda seems to take it hard. She looks stricken at his choice of words, even as the gathered crowd of the market parts to let them through, and the fallen Bergliez is wheeled away. Hilda makes as if to step forward after them, but Edelgard intervenes.

“Let us give the medics some space,” she murmurs, stopping her with a gentle hand to the shoulder, “and you can tell me what went down in the clearing. Alright?”

Hilda nods absently, and her shoulders slump. Her red-rimmed eyes remain trained on where Caspar had disappeared to, as if her gaze alone could restore him back to health. The Leicester noble had acted alarmingly numb on the way back, as if her brain still could not come to terms with what had happened.

When she saw Caspar heading _alone_ into the woods, Edelgard knew she needed someone to go after him, and at the time, Hilda had seemed like the best choice to send as backup. The Emperor had had her hands full with two demonic beasts of her own, so she’d delegated. Part of her wonders if she’d been wrong to do so.

“Your Majesty,” she hardly jumps at the sound of Hubert’s voice materializing from nowhere. From the look on his face, he most likely had already been briefed on the day’s events, “I would like a word with Ms. Goneril.”

The last thing Hilda needed right now was a brutal interrogation at the hands of a Vestra, fragile as she was, so Edelgard shakes her head. She needed to see to this personally, find out the answers firsthand, not ripped by Hubert’s methods. Caspar was to be her War Minister, after all, it’s the least she can do. Her retainer does not look happy, not one bit, but he was never one to deny her anything. He nods his head stiffly.

“Then, please, at your earliest convenience, send her to my office. I have some questions of my own.” Hubert’s compromise, fair as it was, would be detrimental to Hilda’s mental state, she knew that much. But Edelgard was also aware that he would be getting his interrogation, whether she acquiesced or not, and so she nods in return.

He teleports away, just as fast as he arrived, and she turns to check on Hilda. The other girl didn’t even notice the swift interruption. She’s still staring at the spot where Caspar is long gone.

“Come, Hilda. Accompany me to the second floor.”

*** * ***

Edelgard cancels whatever mundane tasks she had for the evening, reschedules the important ones, and goes with Hilda to Jeralt’s old office, where they can have some privacy to talk. She expects that the proximity to the infirmary helps Hilda feel involved, so that’s where they go.

The Captain’s quarters remain mostly untouched, as Byleth had done zero redecorating since he inherited the office from his father. Now, after the events with the Immaculate one, it remained intact. An old, familiar wave of guilt regarding the fates of the Eisner’s causes a violent riptide to clash around Edelgard’s insides, as it quickly blends with the new one from Caspar’s ailment. The Emperor takes a few steadying breaths, regretting her location choice for the briefest of moments, before letting her mind wander.

Edelgard would lie through her teeth if asked, but she’d been drawn to Hilda V. Goneril for a while now. Holst’s sister was impressive in her own right– it had taken a combined effort of two houses during the Battle of the Eagle and Lion to take her down; she posed _that_ much of a threat. That was what initially caught Edelgard’s interest on her next-door neighbor. In fact, this prowess was precisely why she had sent Byleth to recruit Hilda on numerous occasions. Needless to say, each of her refusals stung worse than the last.

She had foolishly hoped that Hilda would be among those swayed by Edelgard’s words and actions. The Golden Deer had the most commoners, after all– at least half of Hilda’s friends were firsthand victims of the crest system and its nobility. Even _Lorenz_ had been able to see that.

That troublesome spark of hope in her chest had only grown when the events in Abyss took place. _Surely_ seeing what the Church did to outcasts and the poor would make some sort of impact on the Goneril heir? The Archbishop’s abandoned pet project had made the fury already inside Edelgard rage into an inferno, one that got her new allies in the Ashen Wolves. In a quite disappointing turn of events, even after their success against the unhinged Aelfric, Hilda’s attitude had remained much the same.

The trip down there hadn’t helped Edelgard’s small infatuation. Hilda had checked on her often, leagues more empathetic than her own house’s Linhardt, regarding her discomfort of being underground. Maybe it was because they were the only girls down there, Ashen Wolves not included, but Hilda had _really_ made an impression with the concern she showed her back then. The older girl had shed some of her aloof and devil-may-care persona, giving a glimpse of what she _could_ be if only she dared to _try_.

Edelgard sets her jaw, and decides not to dwell on the past. None of those thoughts were of any use now, none of those hopes, or dreams, the regrets, her plans. She forces herself to not let this abandoned office unnerve her for another second.

Despite the sitting options available in Jeralt’s quarters, Hilda leans against the far wall and sinks down against it, as if melting into a miserable puddle. Somehow, Edelgard knows Hubert’s insinuations of foul play to hold no merit, for the state of anguish overtaking the Goneril’s every move was plain to see. The usually upbeat girl looked _devastated_.

Edelgard sits down beside her, leans against the wall as well. In the gentlest tone she can manage, she braves the subject at hand, “So. The forest, Hilda. Would you like to tell me what happened?”

Shellshocked as she still is, Hilda takes a while to acknowledge her. She is covered in blood up to her elbows, and some of it has been smeared on her otherwise lovely face, high on her cheekbones and on the curve of her jaw. The morbid part of Edelgard can’t help but wonder how much of it is Caspar’s. Hilda blinks, as if just now realizing she has company, “Huh?”

“The mages,” Edelgard prompts, with the same soft tone, “can you begin with them?”

“Their… hands,” Hilda starts, falters. She holds up her manicured hands, slender fingers tipped in hot pink, palms marred with callouses, “Their hands were, like, rotten.”

Hilda tucks them under her armpits, out of sight, “The only time I’ve seen anything like it was on Abyssians. Do you remember? There was a woman, with the veil?” at Edelgard’s affirmative nod, the Leicester noble continues, “I-I figured it was because of lack of sunlight, the plague, or-or something…”

It's… not what she had asked, but it was natural for Hilda’s brain to retreat to such details after the trauma she just went through. If it helped steer the conversation to where she wanted, then Edelgard would follow Hilda’s lead.

“It happens to dark magic users, over time. The toll this craft takes on the body is different from that of faith, white, or even black magic,” Edelgard says quietly. She’s not sure whether she should reveal the next part, but something compels her to add, “Under his gloves, Hubert’s hands are like what you describe.”

Hilda blinks in confusion. She probably had never spared even a second of her time to think about Hubert von Vestra’s body parts. “But… Lysithea uses those spells. She’s _the_ dark magic queen. Her hands aren’t damaged. I’ve done her nails enough times to know.”

“She is protected by her crest,” Edelgard almost puts her foot in her mouth by saying _crests_ , but catches herself just in time. Hilda still looks a little tormented, so Edelgard sighs, tries her best to explain, “Dark magic is different from black magic– that’s elemental magic, it draws from nature, despite the name. Fire, thunder, wind, you know the type, it’s the one taught in school, openly accepted by all.” Some of the puzzlement in Hilda’s eyes lifts, and Edelgard continues, “Dark magic, on the contrary– it… it offends the goddess. It strays from her light. So, in Lysithea’s case, her choice of magic is frowned upon by the goddess, but her crested blood protects her from being punished.”

“Oh. Old ’Bert doesn’t have a crest. Gotcha,” Hilda hums in understanding, but her frown soon returns, “why isn’t this common knowledge? Professor Manuela never mentioned a difference.”

As a follower of the teachings of Seiros, Edelgard seriously doubted Manuela would dare lecture her students about magic that directly contradicted the goddess. Maybe that’s partly why Lysithea had switched classes, as her needs couldn’t be properly met. Byleth had no qualms with the taboo magic, in fact, he helped Hubert and Lysithea reach their fullest potential. Impaling dangerous cavalry units with a well-placed Dark Spikes had been key to their victory more than once.

The whole day was starting to feel like one colossal joke from Sothis herself, a bizarre series of strange happenings– one of her generals was down after an ambush, and here the last Hresvelg was, teaching a lesson on dark versus white magic to a Golden Deer. It would be amusing if it weren’t so _odd_.

“Not everyone can tap into the potential of dark magic,” is Edelgard’s eventual reply, “Its users are mostly… not the most devout believers.”

A look Edelgard can’t quite describe crosses the other girl’s face, and Hilda asks, “Can _you_ use dark magic?”

Edelgard considers lying, but ultimately deems it pointless. “I am among those who can, yes.”

Hilda’s eyes flick down between them, to Edelgard’s gloved hands. She curls them into fists, “I will not be removing these, so, you can take my word for it. My Crest of Seiros protects me. On the rare instance that I have cast Hades, I have never felt the repercussions.”

The pink-haired girl looks mildly impressed when she says, “Oh, that’s, like, Lysithea’s strongest spell.” The topic seems to have helped her recover somewhat, which was a good sign. 

Edelgard wasn’t particularly good at magic –melee weapons remained her preferred choice– but she _had_ picked up quite a bit of formulas and hexes. She had been Hubert’s study partner in Reason more than once– mostly due to his animosity towards other students, who refused to study with him. He’d gotten better, even made more than a few friends along the way, but she, and later, Lysithea, remained his steadfast partners for such sessions.

“Why do people use that kind of magic, if the consequences are so terrible…” it’s half question, half Hilda sulking about the day’s events. Edelgard doesn’t have an answer for her. To use that magic, you had to tap into a terrible place inside you, and channel those malevolent impulses to unleash the worst kind of attacks. Considering what Lysithea and herself had been through, it was no surprise that dark magic came so easily… Hubert’s aptitude probably came from his own decision to shoulder Edelgard’s own burden as if it were his own, as well as other personal demons of his.

“The people in the forest used that very magic, did they not?” Edelgard senses Hilda has calmed down, somewhat, perhaps enough to explain herself, “do you think you could walk me through what happened?”

Hilda sniffles, doesn’t look her way. She starts picking at the flakes of dried blood on her skirt, where she’d cradled Caspar’s head, and starts to speak. Gone was her bubbly, animated way of speech, even the singsong tilt to her words was missing. When she recounts the day’s events, it’s with a cold, almost clinical approach, like it happened to someone else.

Edelgard waits patiently for her to finish, but as she nears the end, Hilda gets more visibly upset and her voice regains its usual character. Her words are heavily charged with emotion as she recalls the story’s end, the one that they know all-too-well.

“… and then the guy started making a noise. I honestly thought he was choking on like, spit or blood, but. _No_. He was casting… we wanted to bring him in for questioning, but when I saw that, I chucked my hand axe at him,” Hilda balls one hand into a fist and brings it against the flat of her other palm in a crashing motion, “next thing I know, _splat_! Caspar’s flying across the air, right against that tree. T-there was so much blood… like, I know head injuries bleed a ton, but, _fuck_ ,” Hilda’s eyes are wide and watery as she stares at her still stained hands, “so, I rush over to him… and. And those assholes were _gone_.”

Edelgard mulls this over for a few seconds before deciding on what she wants to say, “So, four dark mages, at least three are confirmed kills, and the last knew quite the advanced spell. _Hmm_.” Hilda’s story makes sense in the objective sense, but it does not hold the meaning that Edelgard _wants_. “And you are _sure_ that you did not see anyone else there? Only the four? You are the only witness?”

She must’ve used the wrong tone, because Hilda gets a hard look in her eye, defensive and pissed when she says, “It is so funny to me that you _think_ I can cast Luna.”

“You misunderstand. I believe you,” Edelgard clarifies, “we saw the bloodstained weapons. Your side of things makes sense. What I’m starting to think is that the bodies were more likely than not warped elsewhere by a third party. You weren’t alone in the clearing.”

Hilda buries her face in her hands, dry-heaves for a few seconds. On instinct, Edelgard brings a hand up to place on Hilda’s shoulder, but quickly forces it back down. She wasn’t good at comforting others, and it would have felt inappropriate, given Hilda’s unwilling participation in her army. She confirms she made the right call when Hilda raises her head once more, and her expression is completely crushed.

“ _I wanna go home_!” she wails, a phrase that she’d commonly used back in their Academy days when a battle got tough, but the genuine way that it’s tore from her chest now makes Edelgard’s guts twist with guilt.

“Hilda,” Edelgard begins, but she has to take a moment to carefully maneuver this conversation. The events of the day were starting to catch up with her as well, for there is nothing careful about the words that leave her mouth, “You’re here now, albeit not by your own choice. Although no one could have predicted how the battle would fare, I am glad you were by his side.”

It was not the right thing to say. Eyes like daggers snap up and are aimed directly at her as Hilda says, “You knew the ambush was a possibility, _don’t lie._ I don’t know what you were looking for, but I hope it was worth getting Caspar killed!”

The accusation feels like a punch to the throat, and it leaves her stunned. All Edelgard can manage is a meek, rapid reply of, “Caspar is not dead.”

“ _He’s in surgery_! People die in surgery every day, Edelgard!”

“I do not appreciate the tone you’re taking with me.”

“And _I_ do not appreciate not being told the full scoop of a mission before I’m deployed to it. You know who else used to do that?”

The blatant comparison to _Rhea_ leaves her furious, but Edelgard knows bait when she sees it, and she does not rise to it. She doesn’t give Hilda the satisfaction of a reaction, to see that her words have affected her, and Edelgard skillfully slips on a cold, detached mask to take its place.

It was increasingly obvious that the workings of Hilda’s mind had moved on from the initial shock, and were now on the recovery step that consisted on lashing out. Part of her wants to keep Hilda here and question exactly _how_ she came to her conclusions, as they were alarmingly accurate. The greater part, however, sees how livid the other girl is starting to become, and she doesn’t want the animosity brewing to grow worse.

After all, Hilda’s evaluation regarding the axe lessons was coming up soon, where Edelgard would have to decide if she would make a suitable sparring partner for herself. Edelgard doesn’t wish to fight Hilda, at least not in the verbal sense, there would be time for that soon. Still, the accusations only aggravate the guilt gnawing at her insides, and so she removes herself from the situation.

Nose in the air, Edelgard rises to her feet, pointedly avoids eye contact as she says, “Hubert wanted to speak with you. Please, meet with him at once.”

* * *

After experiencing all that carnage and heartbreak, the last thing Hilda wants to do is be called to Hubert’s office, be berated for over an hour, lectured, and finally insulted. And that’s _exactly_ what happens. He’s horrid, but she knows his disdain stems from a place of worry for Caspar. Mid-through the horrible meeting, Professor Manuela barged in to give them an update, assuring them that Caspar would live. The hopeful note makes Hilda all the more pissed that he’s taking it out on her despite the good news.

“… in the end, you must count yourself lucky that the Emperor believes your phony story,” Hubert’s hands are clasped at the small of his back, and Hilda is surprised he hasn’t dug a hole in the carpet from all his pacing. “Were it up to me, I would have tossed you in the dungeon long ago. You must be used to your gullible brother buying into your outrageous claims, but such fallacies will not do here. Do I make myself clear?”

“This is _bullshit_. You people are full of it.”

Hubert studies her with that lime-colored eye of his, but says nothing. After the embarrassing display of waterworks with Edelgard, all Hilda was left to console herself with is her anger. Hilda is so mad, she’s seeing red. The youngest Goneril is not usually one for headaches, but she’s so livid over these insane accusations, that her head feels like it was bashed in by a hammer. Even if it’s entirely Hubert’s misplaced speculation, it’s still infuriating that he’s even suggesting that she’d like to see Caspar hurt in any capacity.

“Edelgard somehow knew those dark mages would be there. Why else shouldn’t we bring our wyverns, horses, pegasi?” Hilda’s eyes narrow, “she didn’t want to spook actual _humans_. What difference does it make if demonic beasts see riders approaching? She’s not _believing_ my story out of the goodness of her heart. Edelgard was... expecting them.”

The Marquis Vestra exhales a breath, seems to inwardly debate with himself whether he should respond. Eventually, he clicks his heels together and sighs, “It is hardly any of your business, but if you must insist on being a pest, I will tell you this much: Her Majesty was led to believe that Professor Eisner was spotted among the beasts. Hence, her interest in the matter.”

Hilda freezes. By the tired and slightly annoyed way he says it, she figures this must not be the first time such fake claims have been made. Did Edelgard insist on investigating herself every supposed sighting of the mercenary? Did she still hold out hope, after all these years? It must be maddening for Hubert, Hilda thinks, to watch his liege gallop off to goddess-knows where anytime someone claimed to have seen the beloved professor. No wonder he’d seemed extra cranky when giving her this mission, and why he wasn’t keen on joining it.

“There… no. There was no sign of Jeralt’s son whatsoever,” Hilda says, as her headache throbs behind her eyes, “but there sure were a few mages, creepy idiots casting dark spells. I literally got a mouthful of magical locusts.”

“My battalion is all accounted for. It’s-it’s not a matter of whether I believe you,” _which I don’t_ , he doesn’t say, “but it is impossible for mages with a beaked mask to act out of our ranks.”

“You have the monopoly on dark mages, or what?”

Hubert’s lips thin, “Something like that.”

“I’m telling you! Caspar was there! We saw—”

“Caspar has a severe concussion; his skull is cracked open. He’ll be fortunate to string a sentence together when he wakes, let alone vouch for your nonsense.”

Hilda winces at the reminder, but presses on, “Well, _I_ don’t have a concussion!” she tries to level the older man with the most withering look she can manage, “and I know what I saw.”

“We will look into these claims,” he says, the same way Lysithea would promise to eat the untouched veggies on her plate. Meaning: he absolutely would _not_ be doing that.

An interesting detail jumps to her then. She pulls out the scrap of paper with the drawings, the one that’s stained a dark brown with Caspar’s dried blood. She holds it up to his hawkish nose, “I found this at the scene!”

The person behind it clearly wasn’t an artist, but even the illiterate would recognize Rhea’s symbol. Any person in Fodlan, regardless of noble status or not, had spotted the emblem on the armor of the Knights of Seiros and their banners. The other, bigger one, was trickier to place, but Hilda had seen it– oh, she’d seen it etched on the Sword of the Creator.

It was the Crest of Flames.

Hubert’s lips part, and his eyes go wide. Up close like this, she can see the one hidden behind his mop of hair twitch. He snatches it out her hand and hisses, “Who else knows of this?!”

“N-nobody. I forgot that I had tha–” 

“ _Good_. Not a word of this, _to anyone_. Not even Her Majesty. I will know it if you tell a soul. Swear it, Goneril.”

Hilda is worried. She’s worried because of how scared Hubert von Vestra looks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i was originally going to make the whole thing in Hilda's POV, but i soon realized Edie's would be cool too, so! sorry if the switch was kinda violent here, i do try to make their individual voices different so it's easy to tell... also rating is going up for the next chapter!
> 
> \- on another note... i think i've written more this year than i have in the last 5, over 200k words, counting published works and other WIPS i don't have the guts to post. so, since this will be my last update for the year, i just wanted to take a quick moment to thank everyone still reading, commenting and leaving kudos on my works (over 1,000 spanning all 6!) i'm real thankful to see new readers and now-familiar ones loving the same characters i do. not gonna lie, when i made this acc back in february, and number-wise saw how little the FE fandom seemed to care for f/f content, let alone rarepairs, i... really did not know what to expect, but have since been blown away!!! i'll keep being the gay change i wish to see in the world
> 
> \- ANYWAY. hope everyone had a happy holidays, and soon, a happy new year!! here's to a better one


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hilda and Edelgard duke it out on the training grounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mind the updated rating!!

**3**

If Hilda thought getting called to Hubert’s office was the worst thing in the world, it was because she hadn’t yet been summoned by the Emperor herself. Their poorly-concluded meeting in the Captain’s Quarters after Caspar’s accident didn’t count in her book.

She’d been told by a too-upbeat Ferdinand that Edelgard wished to see her at the sixth bell, while everyone else was busy having dinner. Hilda’s stomach growls in protest as she makes her way to the _training grounds_ of all places. She hadn’t been there since the day before the unfortunate events with the demonic beasts at the forest, and a few days had passed.

Visiting Caspar at the infirmary occupied most of her days. Thank the goddess, all he had to show after the nasty attack was a scar in the back of his head, easily covered by his hair. He claimed the last thing he remembered was the foul smell of the demonic beasts, right before they engaged with them, but the rest was a big gap in his memory. Manuela explained to them that sometimes smells made a stronger impression on the brain than other kinds of memories. So he did not recall encountering the circle of dark mages, which was a little disappointing.

The sun was in the process of setting, so when Hilda enters the open-sky arena that is the training grounds, it’s starting to get a bit dark, save for the oil sconces lining the columns, and those provide some light. The eerie shadows they cast only serve to fuel Hilda’s imagination regarding this meeting.

For once, Edelgard isn’t dressed in her emperor regalia. Funnily enough, she had opted for the summer wear, with the classic dress shirt tucked in a beige skirt, tall boots, decorative rapier at her hip. It had been a while since she had seen the revolutionary wear some school-issued clothes, but Hilda had to admit, the summer outfit had definitely been the cutest they had. Even her hair is styled in that cursed side-ponytail, the one she looks so great in, so Edelgard doesn’t really look the part of the fearsome Adrestian Emperor.

As soon as she closes the heavy doors behind her, Hilda clears her throat. The emperor turns, unsmiling. A small sweep of her hand silently orders her to approach, and Hilda does. She tries not to be too unnerved by how _quiet_ the younger girl is, and wonders if Hubert or Jeritza are hiding in the shadows, if this was finally the time for her long-awaited execution.

“The reviews are in,” the Emperor drawls, _much_ too haughty for Hilda’s taste. She holds up a handful of papers, “Hubert compiled these for me. A series of questions asked to your peers, regarding the special axe lessons.”

Hilda feels a wave of nervousness wash over her, but she doesn’t let it show on her face or posture. She simply folds her arms over her chest and juts her chin forward. In contrast, Edelgard’s disposition is a lot more telling. The Adrestian emperor is _not_ in the best of moods, hasn’t been since the fiasco at the forest. She moves like a caged animal, one that could snap from the tension alone. Clearly, her deluded search for Byleth was taking a toll on her, and she wasn’t coping with it in a healthy way.

“Let’s see what my soldiers have to say about you, shall we?” Edelgard gives up on getting a reaction, and makes a big show of straightening the papers and squinting at Hubert’s scrawl. Hilda would that she could punch her just for that. “First off… Sylvain.”

 _Point in my favor_ , Hilda tries not to smile. The Gautier heir was similar to her, full of natural talent and promise, which he used very selectively. Despite his sometimes suggestive comments, he’d done _really_ well in the axe lessons, and had even helped Annie on the rare instances where she fell behind. If she was getting a good review from someone, it’d be from him. Hilda is feeling pretty good about what’s to come until she sees the cold look that overtakes Edelgard’s features.

“Well. Sylvain puts too much stock on your physical assets over any actual skill. We’ll discard this one, I think.”

Before Hilda can so much as open her mouth to protest, the Adrestian has flipped over to another page. “Raphael is next. _Hmm_. He was a former Golden Deer, was he not?” again Edelgard does not wait for an answer, she merely shuffles the paper to the back and says, “he is biased, so we will toss this one as well.”

“That’s not fair,” Hilda finally manages to get her say in, “that’s half the class already!”

To her great annoyance, Edelgard ignores her, and continues her torturous reading of names as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “Ah, Caspar… unfortunately, we couldn’t reach him for comment. He suffered a head injury, as you well know.”

Hilda fumes in silence. This was punishment for what happened in the woods, for comparing Edelgard to Rhea, _surely_ , what the hell else could this debacle be? Edelgard’s assurances that she understood it was an accident didn’t sit so well now.

“Now, regarding Annette… she said you lack discipline, which I can’t help but agree with,” Edelgard says, flicks her eyes up briefly to gauge Hilda’s reaction, which she refuses to give, so she continues, “but otherwise, she mentions that you’re surprisingly good. She feels ready to claim Crusher. Hmph.”

 _Finally_ , Hilda allows for her lips to pull into a smirk. Not even Hubert’s fraudulent style could sabotage Annette’s goody-goody ways. Despite the positive feedback, Hilda is still irritated that Edelgard is downplaying the merit of it all. _Surprisingly good_ is too short a sentence for Annette to sum up two weeks of work, not to mention the amount of relief she must be feeling over being comfortable enough to wield Crusher. Edelgard is paraphrasing what must be two pages worth of praise, but her dull choice of words is infuriating.

Edelgard clears her throat, “Finally, Petra. She notes that you taught her Alliance slang as well as… curse words?”

“W-why did _that_ make it to Hubert’s report? What questions was he even asking?!” Hilda plants her hands on her hips, her growing frustration slowly unraveling. What, did he ask Sylvain how she _dressed_? She wouldn’t put it past Hubert. 

All Edelgard offers in response is a shrug, “He likes to be thorough.”

“He likes to be a walking horror show, is what he likes—”

“Please, spare me the Hubert slander. Anyway, what matters is… Petra deems the extra training satisfactory,” as if she couldn’t hate the emperor’s guts anymore today, the Adrestian sounds _disappointed_. Like she’s upset that Hilda actually managed to do well on the task they imposed on her over failing miserably.

Hilda levels her with a dark look, “Wouldn’t wanna sound _too_ excited, there, Edelgard.”

“ _Alas_ , we find ourselves before a tie,” the corner of Edelgard’s lips twitches up into a playful smile, but it’s not the _fun_ kind. It’s the _Yuri_ kind, where only _one_ party is having a good time. “Two acceptable reviews, two discarded.”

“I’m sure the two you tossed were _stellar_ ,” Hilda has to screw her jaw shut to avoid tacking on a well-deserved _you bitch_ at the end.

“Be that as it may, with the results at hand, I still cannot properly asses your performance,” Edelgard stalks over to the weapon’s rack, and trades her bunch of papers for a training axe, which she twirls over her shoulder. When she walks back to where Hilda is, her eyes glitter with challenge, “And so… I will have to test you myself.”

Alarms blare in Hilda’s head. Dread pools in her empty stomach, and she fights back a whine when she says, “Seriously? You’re the _Emperor_. Don’t you have better things to do?”

“I’ve had a particularly difficult day,” Edelgard says mildly, as she makes rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck a whole thing. They’re probably stiff as hell from all that pent-up anger she seems to be carrying. Hilda’s mind flashes back to their initial _reunion_ , to Edelgard’s bloodied hands and her brawling hobby. She gulps, and the exit feels too far away, for Edelgard takes a step forward.

“I think a friendly set with another axe user is _just_ what I need in order to unwind.”

“If you wanna blow off steam, then go to the sauna like a normal person!”

“Prepare yourself, Hilda.”

It’s all the warning she gets before the Emperor is charging at her.

*** * ***

Weaponless and optionless, Hilda has no choice but to flee.

She sidesteps Edelgard’s direct attack easily enough, but the other girl is relentless, and gives chase. Hilda tries to use one of the columns as cover, and the blunted end of Edelgard’s weapon bounces off, _thankfully_ , but not before _chipping_ the sturdy material from the force behind the blow. The fact that she did any sort of damage to solid rock with a _training axe_ was beyond stupid.

Hilda gasps as Edelgard’s freak strength makes itself known, “You specifically said _friendly_ set. Are you _trying_ to kill me?!”

“Don’t be a baby. I didn’t even touch you.”

The Goneril girl frowns. That sounded… distinctly like the response of someone with a sibling. And she would know, for Hilda was someone’s little sister– the amount of times Holst had tortured her with stupid shenanigans and then uttered Edelgard’s same words whenever she complained was all-too real. But as far as she knew, Edelgard was an only child…?

She was probably overthinking a common phrase.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hilda sees the handle of what she hoped would be a weapon of her own. The asshole of an emperor hadn’t even allowed her a second to arm herself before going ham. She must be in a _really_ bad mood to forget to extend that very simple courtesy, _sheesh_.

Hilda grabs it, holds it up– and grimaces. _It’s a rusted axe._ Only slightly better than a broken one.

Some people liked to keep them around, collect them even, to forge into better stuff with the blacksmith later– Hilda knows it’s her place of privilege speaking, but honestly, she’d rather just buy a brand-new one. The fact that it’s the only weapon she gets the chance to find against one of the toughest opponents out there feels like a cosmic joke.

“ _Okay_ , um. Can I swap this out for– _fuck_!”

The overbearing Emperor doesn’t even give her a chance to ask, as the butt of Edelgard’s superior axe is aimed at her head. _Okay, shit, Edelgard was serious_ serious.

Had Hilda not stumbled back at the last second, the hit to her temple would’ve surely landed her in the infirmary. Edelgard loses her balance after her miss, and Hilda doesn’t even hesitate as she shoves the Adrestian noble backwards with every fiber of strength she can muster. She goes flying right back to the arena, lands on her ass, so Hilda skips away from the columns, back to the middle.

“You got tall,” is Edelgard’s clever observation. She looks miffed by the fact, and her eyes rake up Hilda’s body, as if only now seeing her, _really_ seeing her, for the first time. Having Edelgard’s undivided attention was _a lot_ , but not in an unpleasant way. Hilda finds that she likes it. 

“Thanks for noticing.”

Edelgard’s interest in her newfound height is short-lived, and she springs to her feet, uses her forward momentum for a surprise attack. A measured blow nails her on the right side of the ribcage, and Hilda gets the wind knocked out of her. The lack of a crunch lets her know nothing is broken, but _fuck_ , that’s going to leave a nasty bruise.

The best Hilda can do is retreat, but Edelgard follows, pressing, relentless, forcing her into the defensive. Their friendly matches during interhouse tournaments had never fared like this, and Hilda was doing worse than she ever had in her life.

When Hilda can speak again, it’s more distressed than she’d like, “What even are the terms? How do I make you _stop_?”

“Whoever draws first blood?” Edelgard doesn’t miss a beat as she smacks the left of Hilda’s unguarded torso, giving her a twin bruise on the other side, “or perhaps a knockout?”

“And if someone _yields_ , Edelgard? How about _that_?”

Edelgard’s lips curl in distaste, “I mean, if you want a coward’s way out, be my guest.”

 _Ow_ , yeah, _um_ , that hit her right in the little bundle of trouble that was her pride. Hilda desperately tries to look for a chink in that confident armor the emperor wore, the non-visible kind, but comes up empty-handed. Her rusty axe was even worse than she’d imagined, for Hilda can’t find the proper balance to land a single hit. Edelgard was successfully channeling her personal frustrations against an entertaining enough target, and she seemed to be in complete control, on the road to win.

Unfortunately for Hilda, that target just-so happened to be _her_.

In two strides and a menacing approach, Edelgard decides to add insult to injury. Hilda’s so rattled by everything that’s happening that when the shorter girl hooks the head of her blade behind her and _tugs_ , the Goneril heir is on the ground before she can find the irony in all of this. Her useless axe lands just out of reach.

Edelgard lowers herself to her haunches and holds the blunted metal of her own weapon inches from her nose, “Yield, then.”

Her pride be damned, Hilda considers it. She considers it as her ribcage aches along with the small of her back where she hit the ground. She’s dusty and she’s sweaty and she’s hungry and Edelgard is about to make her cry. Maybe she _should_ yield and accept the loss. What would the consequences be? She’d been drafted _because_ she had something worth teaching to Edelgard. Would she be demoted to serve as a real punching bag, if she admitted defeat?

Somewhere far, far away, Claude’s amused voice whispers in the back of her muddled mind, _Time for a secret scheme_?

Currently, she hates him. She doesn’t want his stupid words or his unsolicited advice. She cares not for that brilliant brain of his or for the reasons behind his actions, the root for his deceit in having her come here. Really, Claude von Riegan disgusts her so much that she wonders what that devious mind of his would do, were he in her unfavorable position.

In the end, _damn him_ , Hilda goes for a secret scheme.

She scoops a handful of sand and flings it right at Edelgard’s face, enough to give the Adrestian a mouthful of the gritty powder. _Yeah_ , it’s quite literally the definition of a dirty play, it is _not_ in the etiquette of a friendly set, but it’s wonderfully effective. Hilda rolls away just as the flat of the training axe comes down. Edelgard probably intended to bonk her on the head to knock her out, but she retrieves her rusty companion and scrambles to her feet just in time.

“You fight without honor,” Edelgard snarls, as she angrily swipes a hand across her eyes to match Hilda’s stance.

Hilda forces a cheeky smile and ignores the echo of Claude’s amused laugh that rings in her ears, “Honor is for suckers, babe.”

Edelgard does not appreciate her response or the term of endearment. In fact, those stormy eyes flash dangerously before she’s rearing up again, attacking fast and true –or, _well_ , as fast as Edelgard can manage– and Hilda feels the surge of sheer power from her crest activate. The crest of Goneril pops then, giving Hilda the tools she needs for a defensive maneuver that otherwise would’ve been impossible to pull off.

“You really think Dimitri is going to fight honorably out there?” Hilda grounds out as she miraculously parries a low blow that would have surely shattered the delicate bones in her ankle. With a shove that she puts all of her weight behind, she forces Edelgard to take several steps back before saying, “The way he is now, he’ll tear out your throat with only his teeth, given the chance.”

“No need to be condescending, Hilda. I’m perfectly aware of what the King is capable of.”

Hilda tries to control her panting, but she feels like her lungs are about to shrivel and die. Still, she mocks Edelgard’s words back at her, “Then don’t be a baby,” the Adrestian’s eyes narrow, “it’s just a little sand in your eyes.”

To her surprise, Edelgard doesn’t immediately attack again. Instead, they begin circling each other, but it’s a little hard to keep her focus. Hilda feels like she’s being consumed by fire, and her breaths are coming in short. The aftermath of her crest activating for such a minor deflect left a lot of unused energy burning inside her, with nowhere to go, and it got _super_ uncomfortable. It used to happen with Claude’s crest, too. If the Riegan gift activated to heal an insignificant scrape, Claude would go beet-red and look like he was getting heat stroke.

 _Fuck it_. Hilda drops her weapon.

In the same smooth motion, she shrugs off her school-issued blazer, once belonging to Ignatz, an uncomfortable fit around her wider set of shoulders. Since getting stuck here, she had to make do with what little old clothes she could get donated from others. Hilda’s original mission had consisted on merely getting Marianne safely across the Alliance, so she hadn’t packed a whole lot of them. Plus, her old school-clothes had been looted after the Adrestian army took over the Monastery. Currently, her wardrobe consists of an atrocious combination of other people’s clothes, most of them ill-fitting or old.

Next, Hilda pops the first three buttons, leaving just the bottom two holding the dress shirt together. She blows some air into the snippet of cleavage that is revealed. The skin is flushed, and her collarbone is dappled with sweat. More than a hint of her undergarments is exposed, but Hilda can’t bring herself to care. It’s not like she was naked.

Whenever she trained against Holst and the crest-thing happened to him, her brother would just toss his whole shirt over his shoulder, and he would cool off in a few minutes. Since Hilda didn’t have a major crest, this very rarely happened to her, but she figures his method should work. Already, the late-evening breeze hitting her chest is making her feel tons better.

“What are– why– _Hilda_ ,” Edelgard all but stammers. She stops her circling and just _stares_ , watches as Hilda folds the discarded coat and goes to place it at the watering station. Hilda enjoys the respite from getting pummeled, so she takes her sweet time before making her way back to their improvised circle. “ _Hilda_ ,” the emperor repeats, almost like a question, and the Goneril heir watches with mild interest as the other girl swallows audibly.

“What? _You’re_ the one that activated my crest,” Hilda reminds her.

“So? I have crests– _ah_ , a _crest_ of my own,” for whatever reason, Edelgard seems to be fumbling her words, “and I’ve never felt inclined to take off any garments when it activates. I do not recall you ever doing _this_ on the battlefield—”

“But we’re not on the battlefield, are we? We’re working through your demented issues in the privacy of the training grounds,” Hilda leisurely picks up her rusty axe and straightens back up, “ _plus_ , your crest has different effects from mine. Out there, mine usually pops against massive, life-threatening attacks. Here, you provoked it for little more than a parry. The leftover energy is… trapped.” Hilda doesn’t know a better way to explain it as she fans her own face, “It’s just a little heat, anyways. Like this, I can cool off fast.”

Edelgard makes a small, strangled noise in the back of her throat.

“Also, this isn’t the first bit of skin you’ve seen from me,” Hilda rolls her eyes at how suddenly inept the previously ruthless emperor was acting, “we shared a bed in Abyss together, remember?”

“I’m. Aware.”

Hilda hides a giggle behind her hand. The choppy sentence, the furious blush overtaking Edelgard’s entire face… she was being a weirdo about this, just like she had been three years ago in Abyss. The women’s quarters had but a lone bunkbed, and graceful hosts as they were, Constance and Hapi had offered to share the top one. Hilda and Edelgard had been forced to share the bed at the bottom, and the then-princess had been unable to meet her eyes after Hilda stripped down to her underwear to sleep. It’s not like their improvised mission down there gave them many options, and Hilda had _not_ been about to sleep in the same stuffy clothes she wore all day (or was it night? Days passed by _weirdly_ in Abyss.) The Ashen Wolves girls hadn’t seemed to mind, hell, Hapi slept in the nude.

On the other hand, Edelgard had asked their newly acquainted Constance to borrow something to sleep in. _Yes_ , she’d requested a favor from the disgraced daughter of a House Edelgard’s family had all but ruined, which Hilda found ballsy at best. Who was to say Constance wouldn’t poison the fabric, or curse it? They hadn’t known her at all back then.

The eccentric mage had produced _the_ dorkiest nightgown, fluffy trim of fake-fur and deep purple, the kinds of which Hilda’s ancient Aunt Irma would swoon at. Plus, Constance was _tall_ , so the material had covered the small princess well past the knees. The memory almost elicits another chuckle out of Hilda, but she holds it back.

“Mm, Edelgard… if you’re going to be a prude about it, I can just button back up—”

“ _No_.” Edelgard’s grip tightens around the handle of her weapon, and a pink tongue darts out to wet her lips. “Do whatever you want. It… doesn’t make a difference to me.”

“If you say so!”

Oh, but it _does_ make a difference. Those previously calculating eyes were no longer solely focused on the span of Hilda’s armed hand or on predicting her footwork, instead, they kept wandering to the exposed skin on her chest. When their blades meet again, Hilda knows she’s got this in the bag. At long last, her opponent’s strikes were sloppy, uncoordinated. It’s like the all-powerful emperor’s brain shut down at the sight of some tits, which Hilda found immensely amusing.

With Edelgard distracted, Hilda presses on her new-found advantage with all of her might. If she’d learned anything about the young emperor, it was that she did _not_ respond well to teasing, so Hilda flashes her most obnoxious smile, “Is this why I beat you at the interhouse axe tournaments? Were you too busy enjoying the view, _Edie_?”

Typically, the mage’s uniforms had been the cutest, but Hilda’s brigand outfit had been one of the best looks she’d donned at the Academy. The off-shoulder style had been really flattering, hugged her curves perfectly– it’s probably the image that Edelgard’s brain conjures up as well, because her face flushes scarlet and finally, _finally_ , Hilda manages to disarm her. The youngest Goneril feints forward, which wasn’t a common move for an axe user, and Edelgard is too disoriented by it to block the real hit when it comes. A precise smack with the flat of her blade against the other girl’s unguarded wrist does the trick, and for the first time in what felt like eons, Hilda can finally breathe.

Edelgard hisses as her weapon slides across the ground. Doubtless without thinking, the Adrestian chases after the axe– making the fatal mistake of turning her back to her opponent. It’s the opportunity she was looking for. Hilda advances on the other noble, with the force of a bull charging, and before Edelgard can retrieve her weapon, Hilda crashes their bodies together against the nearest column. Her rusty axe goes flying somewhere out of sight, but it’s fine– she doesn’t need it to fight Edelgard, not when her mind is clouded like this.

A strangled gasp leaves Edelgard’s lips as she’s sandwiched between the column and Hilda’s firm body behind her. The emperor’s hands claw awkwardly at the pillar she’s trapped against until Hilda grabs them to pin them at the small of her back, imprisoning her for good. Edelgard writhes and even tries to headbutt her with the back of her head a couple of times, furious and confused at this turn of events.

Her newfound height advantage helps, and it’s easy to lord it over her shorter opponent. Hilda’s hands are strong enough to hold both of Edelgard’s with only the one, so she brings the other one up to grab a handful of silver hair and force the younger girl’s cheek against the column so she _stops_ trying to bust her nose open. Hilda makes sure to lace her voice with honey when she says, “Sooo, that thing you mentioned about yielding…?”

A low growl that sounds along the lines of _never_ is the response she gets, but Edelgard seems to be too pissed at her own self to properly articulate her words. Honestly, Hilda would be pretty mad as well if she’d just lost her huge lead in a fight that had been in her favor for the majority of its duration. Yes, Hilda had opted for some unfair strats, but even she knew not to look for a fight with nothing but a foul mood fueling your resolve, and today, the emperor simply had too much on her plate. Edelgard’s stress levels were off the fucking charts.

“You’re so riled up,” Hilda lets her eyes examine the tense lines of muscle on the column of Edelgard’s neck, how they strain against that smooth paleness. She clicks her tongue and casually brings a finger up to lightly trace the skin as if to soothe it, “You seriously need to relax, Your Majesty.”

Surprisingly, Edelgard leans into the touch, just barely, before jerking away and getting flustered again, “A-And how do you suggest I do that when you– when you’re so—”

It’s borderline cute when Edelgard cuts herself off and tries to duck her face, and this time the shade that colors it is that of shame. There’s a slight tremble to her entire frame, Hilda realizes, and their proximity seems to be affecting Edelgard in more ways than one. An enlightening level of awareness starts to dawn on the older girl.

 _Ugh_ , if Edelgard had other body parts, it would be _so_ easy to simply check for a tent in the front of her skirt and confirm her growing suspicions. Alas, in this case, the young emperor’s situation needed to be more carefully assessed, so Hilda decides to search for other clues. Quickly and efficiently determining whether someone was attracted to her was a useful skill when it came to asking others for favors, as Hilda could exploit those tells to her advantage, so she starts to look.

It’s with an excited stirring inside her that Hilda finally notices the telltale signs, many of them, quite like emergency flares, lighting up the Adrestian’s body: her pupils blown, how she’s still somewhat baring her neck to Hilda, the gentle flush on the tips of her ears, how short her breaths come.

Sure, some might just be a result of their sparring, natural reactions to such activity…

But some might not be.

An idea, terrible and intrusive, worms its way to the front of Hilda’s brain, and a guilty desire that hadn’t ever been cause for real concern starts to rear its ugly, neglected head. Against the sacred institution of her best interest, she decides to indulge the thought before her common sense can jump in and put a stop to everything.

“Do you want some help, Edelgard?” Hilda is cautious in how she offers it, but her voice comes out a tad huskier than she’d intended, “Relaxing, I mean?”

Contrary to the rational part of her brain strongly cautioning her against it, Hilda heeds her deepest impulses and lets her free hand wander. She teeters the line between casual and inappropriate, exploring the hard lines of Edelgard’s shoulder blades before ascending to brush away the hair plastered to her neck, lets her nails drag along the feverish skin at her nape. It only emboldens Hilda when Edelgard’s breath audibly catches in her throat.

She crosses that invisible line when said wandering hand suddenly travels down the expanse of Edelgard’s back, past her ribs and over her hips, to ultimately hover over her rear. Ballsy as she was being, Hilda doesn’t actually dare to outright plant her hand on the emperor’s ass—

Edelgard’s body –probably without her permission– has no such qualms. The younger girl arches into Hilda’s palm, so sudden, so eagerly, that Hilda _knows_ it’s unplanned. The distressed little noise that escapes Edelgard gives it away. The combination of everything just sends liquid heat directly to Hilda’s core, and she can feel the last remnants of her self-control coming loose.

Edelgard looks to be a little traumatized by what her body just did, not to mention the _sound_ she just made, and it seems to ignite her resolve once more. She desperately tries to shove Hilda away with a renewed fervor, attempts to use the column she’s bracketed against as a launching pad of sorts, but Hilda doesn’t let up. Edelgard’s thrashing doesn’t do her any favors, for Hilda tightens the grip she has on the hands at her back. The swell of Hilda’s chest, still partly unbuttoned, is pressed more firmly against her, and it’s probably not helping matters on Edelgard’s end.

When Edelgard gives up on breaking loose, there is zero bite behind her attempt at an order when she growls, “ _Get off_!”

“I don’t think I’m the one that needs to get off,” is Hilda’s quiet, immediate response. Maybe she does have a death wish after all.

The angle is weird, but she can still see the way Edelgard’s eyes go wide with outrage. Instead of calling for her head, the emperor’s lips press into a thin, angry line. She finally manages to hide her expression by pressing her forehead against the column, and Edelgard takes a deep, shuddering breath, almost resigned.

“I’ll ask you again,” Hilda murmurs, her heartbeat loud and terrible in her ears, “would you like my help? Uh, in order to… you know, _relax_?”

Edelgard doesn’t respond with her words. Instead, the way the Adrestian’s admission is presented is perhaps a thousand times more damning.

She spreads her legs apart.

“Okay, _okay_! This is happening. Um. Just so we’re clear…” Hilda lets her hand wander from Edelgard’s back over to her front, near her crotch, in what may be her boldest move yet, “is _this_ along the lines of what I should—”

Before she can stumble her way to the end of that sentence, Edelgard’s hips buck forward, closing the gap, and both of them gasp as Hilda’s hand is slotted between her legs. The fabric of the summer-wear skirt is so flimsy it doesn’t make for a particularly good barrier, and the heat radiating from between Edelgard’s thighs feels like the sun.

“Oh. Oh, saints. Edelga—”

“Not a word.” For having just tacitly accepted Hilda’s proposition, Edelgard’s low hiss sure isn’t welcoming. The emperor’s hands clench and unclench at the small of her back as she adds, “And release my hands. For…” a soft exhalation, “for balance.”

The Goneril heir is quick to oblige, and Edelgard braces herself against the column as best as she can. Hilda decides to move her hand and approach this from the back. Edelgard is wearing a skirt, she might as well take advantage of the easy access it provided instead of struggling for no reason. This is all so… _improvised_ , so delicate and fickle, that Hilda is afraid it can shatter at any moment, so she decides to just bring the other girl to release as efficiently as she can.

The skirt remains on and Hilda maneuvers around it, and the same goes for Edelgard’s smallclothes. They could chafe against the side of Hilda’s fingers for what she had in mind, but she was determined to be brief. Hilda simply pushes the soft cotton aside as she dips between the Emperor’s legs, and begins exploring with her knuckles. Edelgard is already so slick, slipping a finger inside her isn’t that big of a stretch.

It’s kind of a pain to figure out what she’s doing, given the awkward angle and the fact that her view is completely obstructed, but Hilda has mapped out the general anatomy well enough in her mind, so getting acquaintanced with the emperor’s most intimate place is a breeze.

Edelgard attempts to give half-hearted instructions, such as _right there_ , _deeper_ , _faster_ , bossy as ever, but in the end, Hilda just goes with the flow. There isn’t really much finesse behind what she’s doing, but the low noises of approval coming from Edelgard’s throat encourage her to keep at it. She lets the heat and velvety feel guide her by pure instinct, and if the reactions she’s getting are any indication, she’s not doing half bad.

The Adrestian isn’t loud by any means, so the soft pants that tumble out of Edelgard’s lips as Hilda brings her closer are ones she drinks in greedily. This is _so_ surreal, such a strange but not entirely unwelcome situation to find herself in. Of course she’d always found Edelgard stupidly attractive, like, Hilda wasn’t _blind_ or completely without taste, but it was that unbearable personality of hers that always proved to be the biggest obstacle before she could get any ideas. Always so unapproachable, so cold and above it all– what was going on right now was short of a miracle, a phenomenon that should be studied by science.

The distant sound of the toll of the seventh bell adds urgency to what she’s doing. Hilda doesn’t know how long the training grounds are booked for, but she figures it won’t be long before a meathead like Felix makes his way here to sneak in some extra sword practice. She withdraws her hand for a second to change her plan of attack, now slipping in from the front as she’d originally intended, pressing ever closer, and Edelgard’s whine of protest when she’s left empty makes Hilda giddy, just from how hot the sound is.

Hilda gently nudges the spot where she knows Edelgard to be aching, finally locating it, and she adds another finger. It draws a soft keen from the emperor that is so delicious, Hilda can’t hold back a moan of her own that rumbles out of her chest.

Almost in a frenzy, Edelgard ruts against Hilda’s palm, the heel of it now pushed against her mound, and Hilda feels like she’s helplessly drunk on Edelgard’s soft _ah_ , _ah_ , _ahs_ that rise in volume in tandem with the fingers moving inside her. She’d been so worked up, such a tight ball of anger and stress, that her body immediately embraces the release that Hilda is all-too-happy to provide. As she comes, Edelgard lets out a low, appreciative groan and her hands scrabble for purchase against the pillar. Hilda does her best to keep her upright, keep her grounded, but eventually she simply lets her slide to the ground, and the Goneril heir takes a step back.

In an uncharacteristic turn of events, Hilda freezes. She feels that her face is on fire as she looks at her hand, wet and sticky. The demented part of her brain urges her to lick it clean, _to have a taste_ , and it’s an inward struggle to resist the impulse. In the end she wipes it against her dress shirt –which is still partly open, _oh_ – and vows to throw it away. The cloud of lust that had enveloped her begins to lift, and as Hilda comes down from the high, she realizes she has two situations to deal with.

The first, she just fucked the Emperor of Adrestia.

 _Edelgard_ _von Hresvelg, the first of her name_ , she reminds herself, just to let it sink in. The Flame Emperor, house leader, warmonger, heretic, alleged mother-killer if Dimitri’s claims were to be believed… Hilda’s head swims with conflict as another part of her throbs, hot and terrible, with desire.

The second issue: she’s unbelievably horny after the fact.

Edelgard is staring at her, lilac eyes lidded and body sprawled, so different from how she’s usually so put-together. _Was that a smile?_ Wow, her orgasm had done wonders to her mood. The Adrestian carefully arranges her skirt to make it presentable, but she’s not fast enough that Hilda doesn’t see some of her handiwork– the smallclothes are damp, as is the skin between her thighs– the sight sends another evil wave of arousal directly to where Hilda is _aching_.

“Hilda,” Edelgard doesn’t even raise her voice at the end, she looks so spent, and the pitch a little gruffer than usual– Hilda tries to ignore what the rich timbre of it does to her nether regions. Edelgard licks her lips before she asks, “Ah, in light of what just… _happened_ … would you like me to—”

“No. I’m– _no_. I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.” Hilda’s smile is so forced, the corners of her lips feel like they’ve been carved out with a knife. She starts to retreat without turning her back on the other noble, “I… I have to go. Immediately. I just remembered I need to– to walk Dorte. Be seeing you!”

Her flimsy excuse does not go over well. Edelgard’s frown is immediate, “Wait—”

Hilda spins on her heel and barrels out of there so fast, she forgot to ask whether she passed the actual axe test.

* * *

Later that night, a soft knock to her door makes Hilda’s eyes snap open.

After furiously rubbing one out with the heated events of the day in mind, Hilda had begged Marianne to bring her some leftovers from dinner, claiming to be unwell.

Edelgard’s brutal attacks had left her with a tender torso, blooming in shades of green and purple, but it’s too much of a bother to get it looked at. The bruises and her internal turmoil were the main reason behind Hilda not feeling up to seeing any other human beings that weren’t blue-haired, soft-spoken, and hailed from Edmund. Bless her heart, Marianne rarely denied her anything, so she was delivered a fish sandwich and a couple of cookies before giving up on this very bizarre day.

After such events, the late visitor wasn’t really a surprise. When she doesn’t answer, the knocking becomes more insistent, but still Hilda refuses to acknowledge it. She had an inkling…

A defeated sigh comes from the other end, the shuffle of footsteps, and the sound of Edelgard’s door creaking shut right next door is the last thing Hilda can process before sleep claims her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... weeell I didn't really tag this as a slowburn, now did i. lol.
> 
> -unfortunately i won't be able to stick to weekly updates like i originally wanted. my field of work never stops, and my last year of Uni is starting, so i had to revise the outline for this, + move some things around. i won't have as much free time, but i do promise to see it through!!


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their sparring at the arena ends with more emotional baggage than actual fighting, Hilda and Edelgard clear the air a little— but not a whole lot.

**5**

About a month and some change into her forced conscription, Hilda hears back from Holst.

At long last.

Her brother’s response consists of a handwritten letter and a _lot_ of pocket money, which was a relief. Hilda had never been frugal when it came to spending her family’s money, and the few gold she’d brought for the journey to Garreg Mach, she’d burned through quite fast. Asking Lorenz for small loans was starting to make her feel like Balthus, so the new shiny bullions to her name were more than welcome.

Lord Vestra had the graciousness to deliver the letter himself during breakfast. He handed her an envelope that had clearly been tampered with. The green wax seal bearing Goneril’s symbol was mostly scratched off, and it had been hastily patched over with some dark wax, to give the illusion that it remained unopened. Hubert hadn’t even _tried_ to pretend her mail was not being monitored.

Brown, ring-shaped stains adorned the middle of the paper. The cynic man probably had a nice cup of bitter coffee while reading through her mail, using the pages as a coaster, this _absolute pig_.

It was over three pages, and Hilda has to reread them several times. She’s not… disowned, so that’s one less thing to worry about. Her brother, however, is rightly indignant, and is demanding an audience with the emperor. Since _he’s_ not dumb, he won’t be coming himself, lest the last available Goneril get captured by the Adrestian Army.

Needless to say, Ladislava would be sad.

Instead, the sucker that is being sent to Garreg Mach appears to be Baltie, bearing the title of ‘ambassador.’ After the fiasco that went down in Abyss, out of the Ashen Wolves, he was the only one that did not join the Adrestian army. He fled back to the Alliance with Hilda and a handful of others, only to become Lord Goneril’s advisor at the roundtable. Her brother got a lot of heat from the other lords for that decision, but Baltie’s life experience was something her brother really valued. Also, Holst was kind of in love with him, so. Maye that factored in.

As she waits for the arrival of Balthus, Hilda has one other vital mission: she avoids Edelgard at all costs.

What happened between them at the training grounds had left her, among other things, _confused_ , but most alarmingly: she couldn’t stop obsessing over it happening again.

Hilda’s not sure _why_ she’s behaving like this. It’s not like she hadn’t had casual, unexpected encounters with others before, but this felt _different_. She suspected it had everything to do with Edelgard’s station, her overall intimidating persona, but also… also a deep fear of fucking up whatever came next– _if_ anything came next, mind you. Having a failed hookup with, like, Ferdinand or Leonie was one thing, who the fuck cares, but she was terrified of Edelgard’s expectations and her view on what happened that day.

So, not acknowledging what happened seemed to be the most bearable thing at the moment. The second best was _avoiding_ Edelgard’s attempts to talk about it, which Hilda became exceptionally good at.

Suddenly, Sylvain Gautier becomes her best friend, and Hilda sticks to him like glue. If someone was an effective Edelgard-repellent, it was the smug Faerghian. He was a valuable ally and a great warrior, but his personality… like, _yeah_ , Hilda wasn’t the world’s most likable person, but _this man_. He’d once claimed the war, despite backing it, could have been avoided if he’d “ _made a move on the Imperial princess_ ” which… Hilda would rather not comment.

Another precaution she takes: she joins Mercedes’ crusade in restoring the ruined cathedral. Marianne was part of that group, so it’s not hard to get an invitation. Apparently, Edelgard had explained that she had a problem with the corrupt institution represented by the Church, and Rhea herself as its head, tyrant that she became, but not necessarily the _faith_ , so it’s not like believers were prosecuted or anything.

Mercedes had even gone the extra mile– she wanted the place to be all-inclusive, and along with her volunteers, set up spaces of worship for Duscur’s gods, Brigid’s spirits… even the Almyran belief system got a mention, as did Sreng. It was kind of neat, actually.

The little group gathered to clean the place, apply fresh paint, replace windows and remove rubble, which Hilda hated, but she hated confronting her growing infatuation with Edelgard von Hresvelg even more, so _debris duty_ it was. While the emperor did not have a problem with the restoration of the cathedral, she _never_ set foot there, so it became Hilda’s hideout.

The letter from her brother bums her out. It really, really does. She only manages to carry a couple of massive wooden beams on her shoulders before Mercedes sees the look on her face and pleasantly suggests that maybe she should take a break for the day.

Usually, being dismissed from doing any type of work was music to her ears, but Hilda was kind of counting on drowning herself in the project to avoid being alone with her thoughts. But Mercedes was right, she was simply too distracted, and if Hilda were to drop the beam due to her scattered thoughts, she could shatter the bones on her foot. Or she could hurt someone else.

It was for the best.

And so, she retreats to one of the small courtyards to the side of the cathedral, the less damaged of the two. The partly-destroyed well there doesn’t have any water, as she was informed bodies were dumped there after the battle of Garreg Mach, only to later be filled with sand and stone to cover the smell. She hadn’t _planned_ to perch herself next to the mass grave, but given the hour, the sun was best here, and nobody was around to bother her, so she sucks it up. It was a precious opportunity to try to absorb some vitamins after hiding out in the cathedral for several days. 

Her pursuit for peace and the sun’s warmth doesn’t last long. A gruff _good day_ that doesn’t have anything remotely _good_ behind it startles her out of the serene mood she found herself in, and a tall figure steps into her personal space, blocking out the sun.

Hilda initially mistakes him for a gargoyle come-to-life, but soon realizes it’s none other than her self-appointed tormentor of the year.

“You again?” Hilda jabs an accusing finger against the letter from her brother, that she’d been re-reading for the fourth time, “did you have a good time going through my private stuff? What in the blazes were you hoping to find?”

“No need to worry. I did not find its contents worthy of note,” Hubert von Vestra says, like his reassurance that he did not find her brother’s heartfelt letter interesting is supposed to make her feel better. He stands before her and clasps his hands behind his back, formal and smug as always, “I am merely here to inform you that the Emperor has approved your brother’s upcoming envoy. Balthus will have diplomatic immunity upon his arrival.”

Hilda eyes him with absolute disgust, _the nerve_ of this man. Not only had he combed through her letter, he’d immediately gone and shared it with Edelgard, unwittingly robbing her of the only excuse she could think of to finally approach the younger woman and see where they stood.

“Speaking of the Emperor…” he says, his tone suddenly losing that air of formality, “how did it go, a few days past? During your evaluation.”

That’s perhaps the most polite way he’d addressed her… ever. And it’s the last thing in the world Hilda wants to talk about, let alone with _him_. The wave of anxiety and suspicion she feels at his casual inquiry makes her skin crawl, so she deflects.

“Aren’t you two best friends? Why don’t you ask _her_?”

“Lady Edelgard has been particularly secretive about your encounter at the training grounds,” Hubert grumbles, “she refused to answer even the most basic of questions. Who came out on top, I could not say.”

Hilda almost wheezes with laughter at his choice of words, but quickly disguises it as a fit of coughing when his lips curl into a snarl, thinking he’s being mocked. It was nice to know she wasn’t the only one that was affected after what happened, but Hubert’s information did not tell her whether Edelgard viewed it as positive or negative experience.

She decides to go with being vague. “Maybe she’s embarrassed.”

“I hardly think Her Majesty would have cause to be embarrassed, considering her opponent’s total lack of integrity—”

“Then why’s she being so dodgy and weird, huh, Hubie? Riddle me _that_.”

“That is what I am trying to find out,” Hubert grounds out from between gritted teeth. The older man works his jaw, probably unclenching it, giving his skull some relief, before he speaks again, “Alas, you are just as stubborn, just as impossible. Is a straightforward answer really so difficult?”

She shrugs, but doesn’t offer a proper answer. It’s interesting seeing the usually stoic retainer care so deeply for another, Hilda truly thought him incapable of it. He seemed to be asking as a friend, out of a place of concern, not as the overbearing manservant she knew him to be. Still, it did not mean _she_ was going to tell him what happened if Edelgard herself wouldn’t. Honestly, it was the kinda thing she could take to the grave if need be.

“I do not understand what could even happen between the two of you to warrant such a response,” Hubert continues, then smooths down his hair, even though there wasn’t a strand out of place, which leads her to think he’s a little unnerved, “this is unlike Lady Edelgard, and I am trying to discern whether this behavior is cause for alarm.”

“Like I said,” Hilda deadpans, “maybe she’s pouty about the outcome.”

“Are you implying that _you_ won?”

All she offers is one of those shit-eating grins that got her into trouble with Seteth more times than she cared to count. Hilda wouldn’t say _she won_ , exactly, but she _did_ successfully stop Edelgard from kicking her ass, and that was a win in her book. Considering how poorly she was doing before her crest popped, it wasn’t a very deserved win, but she’d tack it as a personal victory nonetheless.

“You flatter yourself,” Hubert huffs, and by some miracle moves out of the way, at long last no longer blocking the sun, “Her Majesty did not have any bruises on her.”

“Did you check her ego?”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Hilda says, suppressing another smile. She throws her head back and closes her eyes, lets her face enjoy the last of the sun after this asshole finally moved out of the way, “In all seriousness… you shouldn’t worry about what happened. I know I’m not.”

She only says it because maybe voicing it will get her to believe her own lie, that she’s not thinking about this at every available moment. That the other day didn’t awaken something long-buried within her. Maybe Hilda would one day convince herself that she had acted in self-preservation, nothing more.

When she opens her eyes, he’s still there, and his expression is… softer, if that’s a word that can _ever_ be associated with Hubert von Vestra. His back isn’t perfectly straight anymore, like the iron rod strapped there has given him some leeway, and his facial features suddenly don’t look like they could cut glass all that well.

“Perhaps… she’s unwell,” he wrings his hands together, the almost human-like concern he seems to save only for his lady Edelgard peeking through once more, “maybe she came down with something.”

“She came, alright.” Hilda quips. _Goddess above_ , she’s been spending _entirely too long_ around the likes of Sylvain. Gross.

“What did you say?”

“Yeah, maybe she got sick!” Hilda’s half-truths come easier with each new one she comes up with on the spot, “it was chilly that day at the grounds. Some chicken broth and obligatory bedrest should do the trick. She’ll probably refuse being babied, but…”

“Hmph. It wouldn’t be the first time she hides her poor health in order to accomplish our work,” Hubert muses, “and it _would_ explain her reluctance to talk about it…”

“There ya go.”

“… but that’s too simple an explanation. I suspect there’s more that you are choosing not to disclose, Goneril.”

Hilda throws her hands up, “You got me, _Bert-o_. Truth is, things got steamy between yours truly and Edelgard,” her smile is all canines when she flashes it, “so now she has to face the fact that she’s hot for the _one person_ in her army that doesn’t clap when she farts.”

Hubert doesn’t even blink. Whoever said honesty was the best policy was probably an idiot, as he clearly doesn’t buy it for even a second, and she takes mild offence. Even though she’d banked on his skepticism, part of her wishes he’d entertain the idea, even for one second. His face would be _priceless_.

“It is fine if you wish to pretend you bested Her Majesty during the evaluation,” his voice is back to its usual cold timbre, “but please refrain from fabricating outrageous claims regarding the Emperor’s private life.”

His disbelief stings a little, as it’s the most truthful thing she’s told him all day, but she doesn’t let it bleed into her tone when she says, “Sorry. It’s just… the gossip here is so _boring_. I thought maybe I could spice it up.”

“Keep Lady Edelgard’s good name out of your filthy—”

“ _Okay_! Damn, Hubert. Lighten up. You’re _way_ overthinking this, by the way. Just give her some space. She’ll come to you when she’s ready.”

Hilda really, _really_ hoped Edelgard never did so. The last thing she needed on her plate was Hubert hounding her nonstop and losing his mind over a hookup. Adrestian Emperors tended to not be shy about their lovers, concubines, whatever, so she desperately hoped Edelgard was yet again an exception to their time-old traditions; that she was more _discreet_.

He ignores her sound bit of advice. The Marquis Vestra turns on his heel with a small flair of his cape, which she suspects he enjoyed doing immensely, and says, “I will take my investigation elsewhere. This was useless as ever, and a waste of my time.”

“Maybe investigate the joys of minding your business!” Hilda calls back after him, and then, long after he retreats, adds, “let Edelgard have her secrets, _asshole_.”

It’s several seconds later that she realizes that, in his wake, old Hubert left something behind, fluttering in the weak breeze. She jumps down from her spot and stomps on it, grabs it before it can be carried away by the wind. Hilda immediately regrets it when a coppery stench reaches her nose.

It’s that one piece of paper that Caspar took from the dark mage, with his blood staining the corners. The one with the doodled Crest of Flames and that of Seiros. The same that Hubert freaked out about, but would not elaborate on.

“You dropped…” by the time she looks up, Hilda remembers she’s all alone. Well, _how careless_ of him to just be carrying this around after making such a big deal about it. She pockets it, and just to prove she’s the bigger person, she decides she’ll slip it under his office door.

Have him call her useless then.

* * *

Late that night, someone’s insistent knocking startles her awake.

In lieu of a response, Hilda groans, the universal sign of telling someone to _go away_ without need for words. After the last few days she’s had, she is more than deserving of a well-earned rest. Caspar’s accident, her affair with Edelgard, her brother’s letter… sleep was basically a break from her stupid little life.

More knocking.

“Just open it,” Hilda snaps, as light from the hallway spills into the room.

Hilda’s arsenal of spells (from the five minutes during school where she wanted to be a War Monk) consists on a pitiful attempt at Heal and an even worse Fire, but her one spell is perfect for powering up candles. A dismissive wave of her hand lights said candles, and Hilda sits up, squinting at the intruder.

“Good evening, Hilda. Or… rather, night.”

It’s _Edelgard_ , fully dressed in that dorky loungewear of no sleeves and shorts that was usually saved for the training grounds. It feels fitting that Edelgard may be the only human in the Monastery that actually kinda rocked it. Hilda makes a supreme effort to ignore how good her muscular calves and arms are shown off in the ugly outfit, or how she’s wearing her hair in that annoyingly lovely ponytail that frames her face just right. Hilda hugs the covers closer to her chest, and with a barely concealed scowl, asks, “Can I help you?”

“I would like to do axe training,” the emperor announces, like it’s not about to be the middle of the night.

“What? Right _now_? It’s a little past the eleventh bell,” Hilda tries to keep her growing irritation from creeping into her voice, and fails. Well. She hadn’t tried _terribly_ hard. “Can’t you be reasonable about something for once in your life?”

“I want to train,” Edelgard insists. In an uncharacteristically nervous gesture, she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, before a hurried addition, “… with _you_.”

“And I want to _sleep_.”

Something interesting happens then. A flush, terrible and telling, crawls its way up Edelgard’s neck and settles across the bridge of her nose. It’s the exact same response the Adrestian’s body had given at the training grounds the other day, when they…

“Edelgard,” Hilda says, being very careful. The last thing she wants is for the Emperor to call her out for being out of line. “Do you want to lug around _actual axes_ , or do you want something else?”

“I… I want. To train,” forcing the words out is like pulling teeth for Edelgard, if the glaring reluctance in her voice is any indication. Hilda thinks she may be projecting after all, until the Emperor adds, “ _Like last time_.”

 _Well,_ ‘ _last time’ ended with my fingers inside you_ , the demented part of Hilda wants to say, but she opts for common sense. It’s painfully obvious that Edelgard is _not_ going to ask, so Hilda might as well seek further clarification. She straightens up and waits patiently for Edelgard’s eyes to flit back to hers. When she eventually does just that, Hilda tries for a neutral tone, “Okay, Edelgard. Are you talking about the… uh, shenanigans at the beginning, or a continuation of the stuff at the very end?”

There. It couldn’t be more obvious if she tried. As a bonus, her words came paired with an out if Edelgard so wished to use it, or one for herself if Hilda was delusional after all.

“The latter,” Edelgard’s voice is quiet, overtly polite. Despite the almost-timid delivery, the admission sends heat directly to Hilda’s belly, and she feels a blush to rival Edelgard’s bloom on her cheeks.

 _Holy Seiros_ , was this real life? Had the Adrestian Emperor _really_ come into her room to awkwardly proposition her?

For a split second, Hilda thinks this must be some sort of prank… right? Surely Hubert was hiding on one of the beams of the ceiling, ready with some insane accusation, like, _corruption of the Emperor_ , or something? Was that a crime in Adrestia?

The idea disturbs her so much that she flicks her eyes up, to check. To her great relief, it’s the same old wooden ceiling it’s always been, no creepy bat-people hanging from it. But Edelgard mistakes it for a roll of her eyes, and takes a hasty step back.

“I– forgive me. I—” Edelgard clears her throat, but it does little to hide the sudden tremor in her voice, “I should not have presumed...”

Edelgard looks so _mortified_ , she doesn’t even finish her sentence. Her hand is already reaching for the doorknob, missing it, fumbling, as she seems unable to tear her eyes from Hilda.

“No! Don’t go. Stay.” Hilda uses the same gentle voice Marianne does when she’s trying to not scare a skittish woodland creature. She adjusts her posture and makes some room on the bed, shuffles around so she’s sitting against the wall, trying to appear as inviting as possible.

“Don’t go,” Hilda repeats, pats the empty space beside her, “c’mere.”

Although the assurance gets her shoulders to relax somewhat, Edelgard suddenly looks a little distrustful, like maybe she thinks _Hilda_ is the one pulling the prank on _her_. Unfortunately for them both, Hilda tends to overdo it with the talking when she’s nervous.

“I am not– opposed to the idea, not at all! Of– you know, just, _unwinding_ , like the other day?” Hilda keeps the same warm tone, makes her eyes as sincere as possible, “I was just surprised, is all! ’Cause this is… forward. But don’t worry! We’re on the same page. I’m _really_ into it, so—”

“Very well.”

Thank the goddess Edelgard interrupted, for both of their sakes. The rambling was bordering on idiotic, and far from putting Edelgard at ease, it seemed to just be making her more apprehensive. The Adrestian emperor shuts the door with a soft click and practically marches to join her on the bed, as if heading to battle.

The mattress dips under the new weight, and Edelgard’s body heat beside her ignites something warm and familiar in her veins. Something about the way Edelgard folds her arms around herself tells Hilda that the Black Eagle did not plan this far ahead. Maybe she’d been expecting to get outright rejected, and didn’t know exactly how to proceed now that Hilda had accepted.

“Sheesh, Edelgard. You’re acting like I burned down your crops and poisoned the water supply,” she offers a sheepish grin, lays a friendly hand on the other girl’s knee, trying to make it past the barrier of her arms, “you’re _reaaal_ scowly right now.”

Her touch is not rejected, but Edelgard still looks a little reluctant, “Well. Your constant avoidance of my person did not leave things very clear on my end.”

“Who, _me_?” Hilda prays that the airy laugh she lets out masks the grimace on her face, “I wasn’t avoiding you, don’t be silly!”

“Forgive me. Your sudden closeness to Sylvain must have been my imagination.”

“Hey, he’s an upstanding guy!” Even as she says it, Hilda knows hundreds of women out there would promptly disagree, and they would be _right_. Edelgard clicks her tongue in disbelief, and it only serves to fluster Hilda further.

“Also, I found it odd how you suddenly enjoyed doing manual labor for Mercedes’ cathedral project. If all of that wasn’t done in an effort to avoid _me_ , well…”

“Fine. Fine! I confess. I was a coward,” Hilda inflicts some dramatics to her tone, and her apologetic touch continues its mission of trying to open up Edelgard’s body language. “So, I didn’t handle it in the best way. _Sorry_. Now… let me make amends, how’s that sound?”

Slowly, and a bit reluctantly, Edelgard seems to crawl out of her shell. Her arms fall to her sides and she lets Hilda draw circles on the top of her knee, then lets her travel over to her thigh. Edelgard’s lavender eyes follow the pattern that her fingers are drawing, but instead of going to where she probably wants, they dive to the hem of her shirt.

Sensing that the young emperor is somewhat more at ease after calling out Hilda’s terrible behavior, she eyes the outfit with playful disdain, pinches the red fabric between two fingers, “Why’re you wearing _this_? It’s the dorkiest thing in the world. An actual fashion crime.”

The corner of the emperor’s mouth rises slightly, “It’s comfortable to train in.”

“Yeah, but– like, you didn’t _actually_ mean to train, right? So why—”

“Well,” Edelgard interrupts, the blush from before crawling back up her neck, “if you had said _no_ , then… I… I would have had to distract myself, ah… whenever I have this problem, and I cannot resolve it on my own, I just– I train until I tire myself out, enough so that I don’t have to think about my other needs. It is… not ideal, but it takes the edge off.”

Hilda’s mind reels at the juicy information. She wonders how often this happened, how frequent it was that the emperor was so hot and bothered, so bad that she couldn’t get herself off, that she turned to the training grounds to blow off steam. It’s all-too easy to imagine a frustrated Edelgard punching the lights out of an unsuspecting training dummy to distract her wandering imagination.

In all honesty, Hilda had been thinking about what went down at the training grounds non-stop, and it had provided her with plenty of material for her personal fantasies, but it wasn’t like _she_ could approach Edelgard and ask for another go.

Objectively speaking, Hilda hadn’t done anything out of this world, _not really_ – but she _did_ get where Edelgard was coming from. Sometimes the deed itself wasn’t the key, but just… sometimes it just lay on the _person_ doing it. It could be the simplest of things, but if it came from the _right_ person, well… what was that saying about some types of attractions being irresistible?

A surge of lust, the same that overtook Hilda that fateful day at the training grounds, envelops her senses. Her lips curve into a positively salacious smile when she lets out one simple order, “Strip.”

It… does not go over well. Edelgard practically recoils.

“P-pardon?”

“Like– take off your clothes? How did you think—” Hilda cuts herself off with a confused noise, before asking, “you can’t possibly want to keep them on…?”

“And why not? At the training grounds, I was fully dressed—”

“Um, that’s not how it works, ideally.” A panicked thought about sand and grime races through her mind, the awkward angle, the biting words, the anger. Hilda tugs on one of her long twintails, suddenly uneasy, “Ah, shit… don’t tell me, _um_ … that the other day was your first time?”

Not that there would be anything _wrong_ with that, but Hilda could have afforded to be a lot more gentle, more considerate, had that been the case. With a guilty pang, she realizes Edelgard had had sand thrown in her face mere minutes before getting railed against the pillar.

“Of course it wasn’t my first,” Edelgard snaps. Realizing the defensive tone is uncalled for, the emperor lets out a small sigh, “I will admit I am not _the_ most experienced, but,” she raises her eyes to the ceiling, “if you must know… previous partners just. Worked around them. Or over them.”

“That’s not practical. That’s gonna chafe skin, the clothes get in the way…” _plus, looking is half the fun_ , Hilda doesn’t say. She hesitates, unsure if she wants to cross this bridge, “Look. Is this… is this about the scars?”

“ _What_?” Edelgard’s voice is startled, cold. The emperor’s entire frame tenses. Her metaphorical walls come up so fast, Hilda almost gets metaphorically smacked in the face.

Only now did Hilda understand what her brother meant any time he informed her that she had _zero_ tact. There were times when beating around the bush to eventually get to the point was all well and good, necessary even, but for this situation, Hilda just figured it would be practical to get to the heart of it. Since Edelgard had been born and raised in a modern city like Enbarr, Hilda seriously doubted the Imperial noble’s issue was with overall nudity. So, it was probably regarding her body, and Hilda just-so happened to have some insider information about _that_.

The older girl releases a breath that transforms into her blowing a frustrated raspberry by the end, “Right. Uh, listen. You know I’m friends with Lysithea. Us Golden Deer girls had this tradition to visit the sauna after a long day… and, _well_. Those _obvious_ surgical scars of hers weren’t easy to ignore… one day, Leonie flat-out _asked_ ,” she remembers the young mage trembling with something stronger and icier than rage when she answered Leonie’s non-stop questions, “and Lys just… told us bits and pieces. That some folks operated on her sometime after the Hrym rebellion. She didn’t seem to want to go into detail.”

Edelgard looks completely stunned, and her eyes dart towards the door, like she’s considering making a run for it. She’s a lot more agitated than before, completely undermining Hilda’s efforts to get her comfortable… which, well, it would be perfectly alright if she decided to go. This wasn’t exactly a topic to get _anyone_ in the mood. From the few clues Lysithea gave, Hilda’s money was on some sort of rare blood disease that only children got.

Lys was somewhat open when talking about her ‘ _condition_ ’, but she still did not give the _full_ story; of _that_ , she was fiercely protective, it was something she held close to her heart. The white hair both nobles had was not a result of genetics, that’s _one_ thing that the Ordelia heir had confided in Hilda about Edelgard. Now, two years later, she noticed the purple veil Lysithea wore over her snowy hair. Hilda’s heart shriveled a little upon realizing that it probably served as a placeholder of the color she had as a kid, as Lord Ordelia’s was of that exact shade.

“Lys didn’t tell us _why_ those people operated on her as a kid,” Hilda continues, one last attempt to get Edelgard to stay, “but she did share her suspicions that the same thing happened to you, even if you kept being annoying about it and denying it,” Hilda figured the Imperial princess at the time had the same rare blood disorder, but if Lysithea ever got confirmation, she never did revert her findings to the other Golden Deer, “ _sooo_ , if you think it’s a dealbreaker, that I care about some minor scarring—”

“It’s not minor, by any means… the scarring,” Edelgard’s tone is cagey, but at least she doesn’t look like she wants to bolt anymore. She seems to be evaluating just _how much_ of the story Hilda knows, what she doesn’t, and how to keep it that way. Eventually, she lets out another one of her long sighs, “It’s understandable that Lysithea did not delve into detail. Countless children were subjected to those terrible procedures, some going mad or simply succumbing under the knife—” Edelgard chokes on what must be her own anger, and doesn’t continue.

Hilda grits her teeth. “Do you want to get laid, or do you want to make me depressed?”

The walking contradiction that is Edelgard von Hresvelg puffs out her cheeks, and she shakes her head. The story is quite sinister, probably goes deeper than Hilda thinks, but she knows not to pry, hadn’t done it that day at the sauna, wasn’t about to do it right now.

“Some scarring is _not_ a problem, honestly!” Hilda feels ridiculous that she has to say it, considering the lives they led, the fact that she even had scars of her own. Literally no one enrolled in Garreg Mach could boast a damage-free skin. Still, Hilda tries to insist, “I’m not gonna comment, or be weird about them… unless _you_ were planning on being weird, in which case…”

Edelgard huffs something almost like a laugh, “ _Nothing_ about _any of this_ is remotely planned, believe me. But I…” she catches her lower lip between her teeth, “I can’t stop thinking about... that day,” the way Edelgard’s heated gaze shifts over to her, _goddess_ , Hilda could just combust, “such thoughts have been interfering with my daily business, so much so that Hubert has become curious. And so, I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

 _Well, well, well,_ Hubert’s cursed visit earlier that day suddenly made a lot more sense. He thought he could bully her into telling him what was wrong with his liege, when really, Edelgard just seemed to be touch-starved and in need of some action.

“I will remove my garments from the waist down. Does that sound acceptable?”

“Edelgard.”

“… and, maybe, if this is not an utter disaster, we may revisit the upper torso situation at a later occasion.”

There was something kind of endearing about Edelgard being so insecure about some scars, when she was quite unflappable in every other aspect of her life. It was one of those crazy reminders that, _yeah_ , the Flame Emperor was just a young woman that was capable of being self-conscious just like anyone else, who feared judgement from her peers like the average person.

Hilda gives in with a dramatic sigh, “ _Ugh_! Okay. But, do you _have to_ say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“ _Upper torso_. Just, like, say your chest, or—”

Hilda’s sentence dies in her throat as the younger girl sits up on her knees. True to her word, Edelgard slips out of her shorts, her smallclothes along with them, and Hilda feels the last remnants of her self-control implode.

In a particularly bold move, Edelgard slides into her lap, and it effectively shuts Hilda up, like a trapdoor being slammed. It was strange (but, like, totally not unwelcome) how confident Edelgard von Hresvelg behaved for some things; but how self-conscious she reacted to others. It only sparked the Claude-like instinct inside Hilda, to grow curious about her, to find how, exactly, the Emperor ticked, what made her the way she was, the _why_ behind it all.

She’d been mostly fine before, but suddenly, Hilda gets nervous. They hadn’t had… actual, touchy-feely foreplay the other day. Not even a little loving caress or anything like that. _Kissing_ was usually a good place to start with, in Hilda’s opinion, but the prospect of having a first kiss with the Adrestian Emperor was suddenly very daunting. _Seiros_ , she’d fingered Edelgard the other day, and here she was, balking at the prospect of kissing her… it was so ridiculous that it’d be funny if it were happening to literally anyone else.

In the end, there’s no need to stress over that, for the Emperor of Adrestia knows what she wants, and is prepared to get it. She grabs Hilda’s wrist and guides it to her entrance, lets her reacquaintance herself with that welcoming warmth.

“Oh–” Hilda does her utmost not to sound like the horny idiot she actually is, “you’re already so wet—”

Edelgard’s face looks like it’s slowly being consumed by fire as she admits, “I– I tried to take care of it myself, but… part of me kept insisting that who I desired was right next door.”

Hilda _wanted_ to play it cool, but the emperor’s words immediately get to her head, and inflate her self-importance to dangerous Ferdinand-esque levels. Although she _really_ shouldn’t be surprised, considering what they’d already done, Hilda is delighted to find that the emperor has needs, she has _wants_ , the kind that don’t fall into the conquer-an-entire-continent line.

For no apparent reason, Hilda’s fevered mind decides to tease Edelgard a little, “Damn right. You know, maybe this time around _I_ can get to have some fun. I did all of the work last time… so, uh, you know. Maybe next time you think to call me lazy, _don’t_.”

“ _That’s rich_!” Edelgard grins in response, but the words that follow are sharp, “You fled before I could return the favor, remember? I _did_ offer.”

“I– I was fine.”

“Is that so?” Edelgard adjusts her position, sinking further into Hilda’s fingers, and sighs, “If I recall correctly –and _I do_ – your face was aflame, and you were pressing your legs together, doing a little dance… yet, you were _fine_?”

“Yes, I was. _Shut up_.” Hilda takes out her fingers, waits three seconds, then promptly thrusts them back in, deeper, making the girl straddling her gasp.

Edelgard smiles, blushing a pretty, telling red, all the way to her ears. Suddenly, the Adrestian Emperor did not seem to unapproachable, so above-it-all. She was a living, breathing person– one that had just admitted to desiring Hilda. The former Golden Deer snakes her free arm around Edelgard’s waist and brings her ever closer, adjusting her grip as she does.

“So!” Hilda says, “who were these _previous partners_ that were sooo very accommodating?”

Edelgard makes a sound almost like a scoff, albeit more playful, and ducks her head to avoid answering. Without much of a warning, Hilda pushes the palm pressed against Edelgard harder, hitting the one place that made the Adrestian emperor _sing_ , the same Hilda was slowly learning to exploit. One of Edelgard’s shaky hands clamps down on Hilda’s shoulder, while the other she brings up to her mouth to trap any other sounds.

“I’m not asking as small talk,” Hilda purposefully curls the fingers inside her, and Edelgard muffles a whine behind her knuckles, “ _tell me_.”

She really hoped Marianne, oblivious, sweet girl next door, was still the same heavy sleeper from years before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i... can't believe we're halfway there,, or that it's shaping up to be as long as some of my other works, gods help me. i literally don't know how to write a short fic when the hildagard brainworms hit huh?
> 
> schedule is still v wonky, but i had around 70% of this done, so i found some time to post a little treat before Jan is over. it ain't much, but it's honest work....


End file.
